
Gass_Jj./v&- 



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Book 



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BAPTIST 
WAYMARKS 



PRINCIPLES and USAGES OF GOSPEL 
CHURCHES, MAINLY from AUTHENTIC 
SOURCES, with NOTES and COMMENTS 



j^ 



By S. H; Ford, D. D. 



PHILADELPHIA 

Smerican ^apttet publication Society 

1420 Chestnut Street 



^ 






THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two Copies Received 

JUN 11 1903 

Copyright Entry 

CLASS cu XXc. No 

COPY B. 



Copyright 1903 by the 
American Baptist Publication Society 



Published May, 1903 



jfrom tbe Society's own {press 



Zo tbe JBapti3et> Believers 

associated by covenant in faith and fellowship into distinct 
and independent gospel churches, the representatives in these 
changed times of apostolic doctrine and ordinance ; to those 
who during the whole gospel dispensation have borne above 
the thunders of anathemas and the flames of persecution 
their fearless protest against the abandonment of the truth 
as it is in Jesus ; who have stood like a sto?te wall il by 
the word of truth, by the power of God, by the amiour 
of righteousness on the right hand and on the left ; by 
honour and dishonour, by evil report and good report : as 
deceivers, and yet true ; as unknown, and yet well known ; 
as dying, and behold we live ; as chastened, and not killed ; 
as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many 
rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things" — a 
peculiar people kept by the power of God — these way marks 
in the wilderness are prayerfully and lovingly subscribed. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Introduction 7 

II. What is a Gospel Church? 12 

III. How is a Gospel Church Formed? ... 16 

IV. What Constitutes Believers a Gospel 

Church ? 20 

V. Is Baptism the Door into a Gospel 

Church ? ... 24 

VI. Notes and Comment s — Church-Fellow- 
ship 33 

VII. The Officers of a Gospel Church — Choice, 
Qualifications, and Ordination of Min- 
isters 39 

VIII. Confession of Faith by Abraham Booth 

at his Ordination 43 

IX. Laying on of Hands in Ordination ... 57 

X. Qualifications, Duties, and Ordination of 

Deacons 61 

XI. Public Worship — Praise, Prayer, Preach- 

ing, and the Lord's Supper 66 

XII. Church Discipline 81 

v 



VI CONTENTS 

CHAPTZ7 PAGE 

XIII. As to Deposing a Baptist Minister . . 92 

XIV. The Independence of a Church .... 1- 

XV. Sovereignty of Church or Association . 99 

XVI. The Right of a Church to Receive into 

its Fellowship Excluded Members . . 116 

XVII. When Were the First Gospel Churches 

or Church Formed? 122 

XVIII. Irregular Immersion 130 

XIX Alien Immersions 135 

XX. The Inclusive and Exclusive Character 

of a Gospel Church the Old Landmark 137 

XXI. The Xame Baptist 142 

XXII. Are Baptists Protestants? 151 

XXIII. Baptist History 155 

XXIV. In Regard to Baptist Succession .... 161 

Appendix A. A Declaration of Faith — N 

Hampshire 164 

Appendix B. Spread of Baptist Principles . . 

Appendix C. Scriptural Apostolic Baptism . . 189 



BAPTIST WAYMARKS 



CHAPTER I 

INTRODUCTION 



THE Baptists of America at the beginning of the 
twentieth century number nearly five million 
communicants. They are found in every State 
and Territory of the Union, with schools, colleges, 
and theological seminaries, equal in numbers and in 
efficiency to those of any denomination in the 
country, and added to these a great Publishing 
Society with branches in various States. That 
this mighty and aggressive people should know 
themselves — their antecedents, their principles, and 
their usages — is beyond all question. Others should 
also have the means of knowing them. 

The questions to be answered in these pages 
are, what are the principles, and what are the church 
usages of these people — the Baptists of America ? 

There are various treatises, manuals, handbooks, 
and the like, on church discipline. Most of these 
are the result of laborious thought and research. 
Many of them are almost unexceptionable in their 
teachings and practical character. 

7 



8 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

But there is one field as yet unoccupied. There 
is a want still unsupplied in our denominational 
literature. There is no work which embodies the 
acts of churches or Associations in prominent or 
remarkable cases, and which would serve as prec- 
edents or guides in time of trouble. 

Buoys and lighthouses are placed along the 
rugged shore, where dangers have been met or 
where wrecks have occurred. The rocks and 
shoals may thus be shunned and the safe channel 
be pursued. The experience of early mariners 
becomes the teacher of those who come after. 
This is, in fact, the basis of all progression. The 
voices of the past speaking to us in its acts, the 
wisdom of the past seen and tested in the results 
of those acts, become guides to us in our still 
onward struggles toward perfection. The triumphs 
or defeats of others should be marked down for our 
guidance ; their mistakes or imprudence for our 
future avoidance. They will form a chart, to be 
consulted on unknown or dangerous seas. 

Precedents or examples are appealed to as com- 
mon law. " Common law is immemorial usage." 
Renderings, decisions, and verdicts, are appealed 
to as precedents ; and, when established as such, 
have an intrinsic authority. When they have be- 
come common usage, they stand forth as the result 
of the wisdom and experience of ages. They have 
been tried and tested ; have challenged and 



INTRODUCTION 9 

obtained the common consent and assent. Hence 
their authority or influence. The Book of God is 
the only law of his churches. To make or unmake 
its laws or ordinances is treason against heaven. 
To claim the right to abolish, amend, or suspend 
its discipline, is the highest presumption. It is a 
sign of Antichrist. Yet, how, or in what method, 
these laws and discipline shall be enforced or ap- 
plied, are questions which the honest Christian or 
prayerful church may find it difficult to answer, 
and, in matters of church polity, may undesignedly 
err. Cases of discipline will frequently occur in 
which mismanagement, or haste, or inexperience, 
will involve a church, or a number of churches, in 
almost interminable difficulty. 

The artful and guilty will shun the simple and 
long-established modes of discipline or adjustment, 
and an inexperienced church will have no examples 
to guide it, and anarchy or division will result. 
" There is nothing new under the sun." It is 
hardly possible that any case of discipline can 
occur, either in a church or an Association, but 
that some case analogous has occurred before. 
Now, if this analogous case were before us, together 
with the way in which it was managed and dis- 
posed of, and the wisdom and justness of that 
decision tested by time, what a guide would that 
case be in settling a similar one. 

To arrange systematically the acts of churches 



IO BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

and Associations in important matters of discipline 
with members, ministers, or churches ; to report 
cases and review them, so as to present the usages 
of Baptists, past and present ; report the actual 
code of practices among us — would be a laborious 
undertaking, but certainly a useful one. Be this as 
it may, we have determined to attempt its partial 
accomplishment. 

From the minutes of the Philadelphia Associa- 
tion, from Semple's " History of the Virginia Bap- 
tists," from the " History of the Kentocton Associa- 
tion/' Benedict's History, and that of the Alabama 
Baptists, and also from records and minutes of 
Associations and churches, may be gathered the 
acts and usages of our denomination in the South- 
west — classified so as to serve as a book of refer- 
ence, not authoritative, but as a guide, or monitor, 
which will aid in producing uniformity in our oper- 
ations. The constitution of a church, the steps to 
be taken, and the manner of constituting it, and 
the attending services, ought to some extent, at 
least, to be governed by settled usage. An ex- 
ample of how this is usually done, will be a guide. 
The call of a pastor, the ordination of a minister, 
or the election of a deacon ; the arraignment of a 
member or a minister, the proper mode of trial, 
what witnesses should be received, and what pen- 
alties adjudged ; when a council of helps should 
be called, and its duty when called ; the relation 






INTRODUCTION I I 

of one church to another, and of churches to an 
Association ; of ministers to each other, and of 
churches to the ministry ; all these may be illus- 
trated by cases which have undergone rigid investi- 
gation, and in which decisions have been rendered, 
and received as correct. 



CHAPTER II 

WHAT IS A GOSPEL CHURCH? 

THE word which the Lord Jesus selected to 
designate his associated people means in the 
Greek in which the New Testament was written, 
a called-out assembly. It is ecclesia, and this word 
occurs three times in the discourses of our Lord 
Jesus Christ. It is for the first time used by him 
in Matt. 16 : 18, though there it may have a fig- 
urative application. Its literal meaning — that is, 
its real meaning — is evident from the Lord's use 
of it in Matt. 18:17. In the first instance the 
Lord's words are, "Upon this rock I will build my 
church." In the second, " If he shall neglect to hear 
them (the two or three) tell it to the church," and 
" If he neglect to hear the church, let him be to 
thee as an heathen man and a publican." Here the 
church of course means a body of people, larger 
and more authoritative than the "two or three" 
whom the offended brother has to take with him to 
the offender. 

It was a body or assemblage that could hear the 
complaint, decide or adjudge — a united congrega- 
tion of believers. It cannot be supposed that our 
12 



WHAT IS A GOSPEL CHURCH? 1 3 

Lord used the word in these plain instructions in a 
different sense from the one in the sixteenth 
chapter, " Upon this rock will I build my church." 
If he had, then these disciples would not have 
understood what he meant by such a body. The 
word must certainly have the same meaning in both 
instances, and if in the last instance it means a lit- 
eral assembly, it must in the first mean a literal 
assembly. Dean Alford, an Episcopalian, so 
declares. Stier, a Lutheran, an eminent Greek 
lexicographer, says : " In the second instance, ' Tell 
it to the church/ it obtains a more special signifi- 
cance ; yet it evidently points back to the first, so 
that the fundamental idea can only be the same." 
The " Pulpit Commentary " gives this testimony: 
" The word translated church, i ecclesia? Matt. 16: 
18, is found the first time in the New Testament ; it 
is derived from a verb meaning 'to call out,' and in 
classic Greek denotes the regular legislative assembly 
of a people. Ecclesia has been that which desig- 
nates the Christian society, and has been in all ages 
and countries." Liddell and Scott (the standard 
Greek lexicon, with all scholars and in all colleges 
and universities) defines ecclesia "an assembly of 
people called together," "an assembly called 
out." The ecclesia was common among the 
Greeks. According to Trench, " ecclesia was a 
lawful assembly of a free Greek city of those who 
were worthy and well qualified as citizens for the 



14 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

transaction of public affairs." Robinson's Greek 
lexicon: " The word ecchsia was common among 
the Jews as meaning a congregation, an assembly." 

Thayer, in his lexicon of the New Testament 
Greek, collates critically the usage of the word 
from Thucydides to the end of the New Testament 
period, and finds it everywhere to mean an assem- 
bly real and visible : " The word ecclesia is found 
in the Greek translation of the New Testament 
seventy-four times, and is always used in the trans- 
lation of the Hebrew word i kahal,' to call together. 
No other Hebrew word is so translated. Kahal is 
found in the Hebrew Scriptures one hundred and 
twenty-four times, and translated seventy-four 
times ecclesia, forty-seven times synagogue, twice 
plethos, and once Sanhedrin." 

We read of the " churches of the Gentiles," 
" So ordain we in all the churches," "The churches 
of the Macedonians," "The seven churches which 
are in Asia." We nowhere read of the church of 
Asia, or the church of Macedonia. There is no 
instance of the word church in the singular, used 
to describe the churches as a whole, that is, the 
aggregated local assemblies. " The church " (Acts 
9 : 31), or "churches," as in many manuscripts, is 
no exception, as we shall show. 

It is as clear as the sunlight from the New Tes- 
tament, that there was no such thing as a general 
church under apostolic ministry. Baptists some- 



WHAT IS A GOSPEL CHURCH? I 5 

times speak of the Baptist Church when they mean 
the aggregate of the churches. It is the influence 
of others upon them. "The Methodist Church of 
America," "The Lutheran Church," "The Pres- 
byterian Church," why not the " Baptist Church " ? 
Because there is, there can be, no gospel church 
but a real, local, a worshiping congregation of 
Christ's people. Custom is masterful. Baptists 
must fling off its mastery and cling to God's 
truth. We as churches are one, as the forest is 
one, Baptist churches are distinct and separate as 
the trees are distinct and separate. The forest is 
not a great tree. It would be ridiculous to call it 
" the tree." The aggregation is not a great church. 
It is ridiculous to call it one. The apple orchard 
is not the apple tree. The tree would still be a 
tree were all the others cut down. The denomina- 
tion is not the church. That individual body would 
still be a church were every other removed or 
dead. It is the church, though a thousand others 
surround it. Baptists are formed into churches, 
but these churches are not the church, or "branches 
of the church." 



CHAPTER III 



r 



zzzzrz.r.g :: 

: A r: 



; v. -3-s .v..s verei by the rliiliiel:: 
q : "Before there can be any or- 
}-:.-. :: g \ 1... .-:. 

:: :.r..:..:ti ::*.:: .1 :.„::.; i:i:e. 
institution of Christ in the GospeL 
:'.'. . ::'.-. :s ~:iie by gzii.tr.: g fivers 
?ele:: r_ e rlru^l i: iy. 

= r.i relit: :r. :: :..::. :- the:: :v.y~:. ;il be^i . i:.i 
crecires :..-.. : :be ".::!*: :f rer.e-br.g gr^ce :":r 
s.; :h 5r r.niL : .... i..-.r 

J. Christ, as the Mediator of the new covenant 
ordereth the everlasting gospel to be preached, 
i:\ i ..: : : :r.; ■ .1 :..:: r .: .:.". his H:ly Scirl: blesse::. 
it to die turning of men from darkness to light, 
working faith and love in them, 

"3. When sinners are thus wrought upon effectu- 
ally, to such a suitable number as may be an essen- 
tial church, L e. 9 to as many as may act properly 
and orderly as a church, that then it will be proper 
for them, by their mutual consent, to propose to be 
c on st i tuted a church, or that others seeing die 
expediency thereof ma gc : he 9 m c 

16 



HOW IS A GOSPEL CHURCH FORMED? 1 7 

"4. For the accomplishment of so glorious a work 
it is necessary that a day of fasting and prayer be 
appointed by and among such believers, and that 
such procure some neighboring helps as they can, 
especially of the ministry. 

" 5. The persons being first orderly baptized, 
according to the command of Christ, and being all 
satisfied of the graces and qualifications of each 
other, and being willing in the fear of God to take 
the laws of Christ upon them, and do by one mu- 
tual consent give up themselves to the Lord, and 
to one another in the Lord, solemnly submitting to 
the government of Christ in his church, and being 
united, they are to be declared a gospel church 
of Jesus Christ. 

" 6. A number of believers thus united under 
Christ, their mystical head, are become a church 
essential, and as such is the first and proper subject 
of the keys, and the power and privilege to govern 
themselves, and to choose out their own ministerial 
officers." 

Baptists hold that a gospel church is a local 
assembly of baptized believers, and the scholarship 
of the age admits that they are right according to 
the acknowledged meaning of the term used by 
the Lord Jesus. That this term is several times 
used to signify all the saved is certain. But it is a 
figurative application of the word. The saved, the 
blood-washed, are called sheep or a flock of sheep, 

B 



I 8 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

but this is not literal ; they are not sheep really. 
It is only that in some particulars they are like 
sheep. So they are termed the lamb's wife and a 
building, but these are simply a figurative applica- 
tion of the term. It is misleading and confusing 
to conceive such figures to be facts, and to use 
metaphors as realities. 

The Lord Jesus is called the " Lion of the tribe 
of Judah" ; how confusing it would be to speak 
of a lion dying on the cross, or of the believer as 
a lamb in the grasp of a lion. It is just as con- 
fusing to speak of the church of all ages and cen- 
turies following the divine Shepherd as a real veri- 
table flock of sheep. For a flock is a number of 
gathered or congregated sheep. Unless assembled 
together they are not a flock. But this is made 
more confusing still when the flock is conceived to 
be a house and the house a garden, and the house 
and garden growing up into the head. Let it be 
remembered as a verity, that God's people (not 
a congregation or church as such) are compared 
to an army, are compared to a bride, a building, a 
body, having conditions resembling these. And so 
Christ's people are compared to a congregation, to 
a church, because they have a resemblance to a 
gathering or united body. 

Stripped of metaphor, a church is a company of 
baptized believers united together in faith and fel- 
lowship in the name of the Lord Jesus for his 



HOW IS A GOSPEL CHURCH FORMED? 1 9 

service. A church is an ecclesia, is a called-out, 
spiritual congregation. It is in fact nothing more 
and is nothing less. A church, therefore, is not a 
general organization. It is not an aggregation of 
numerous local assemblies. The church at Corinth, 
at Philippi, together with those around them, were 
never called by the apostles "The Church of 
Greece/ ' or the catholic, that is, a general church. 




CHAPTER IV 

WHAT CONSTITUTES BELIEVERS A CHURCH 

THE way in which a company of baptized be- 
lievers become a church has been described 
in the second chapter. To make this still plainer, 
let us turn our thoughts to the church at Phil- 
ippi. We are all familiar with the introduction of 
the gospel into that Greek city. Paul and Silas 
entered in, unheralded and knowing none there. 
On the seventh day they wandered out to the 
banks of the little river that marked its shores. 
They had learned, doubtless, that the pious Jews 
of the town met there on the Sabbath Day for wor- 
ship. It was a spot "where prayer was wont to 
be made." Paul preached ; Lydia, a traveling mer- 
chant woman, who was a sincere worshiper of God, 
heard, evidently with deep interest, the preached 
word. The Lord touched her heart and she was 
converted and baptized. 

Those who were with her, her servants or travel- 
ing companions, also heard and believed. And as 
Jesus made and baptized disciples, that is, made 
them by the truth preached with the Holy Spirit's 
application of that truth, so Paul and Silas made 



WHAT CONSTITUTES BELIEVERS A CHURCH? 21 

disciples of these subjects of grace and then bap- 
tized them. Then came the imprisonment of Paul 
and Silas. Their midnight songs of triumph were 
followed by the trembling of the earth. The prison 
foundations were shaken. The jailer was con- 
verted. He was told to believe on the Lord Jesus 
Christ for salvation. He did and was saved. Paul 
and Silas then " spake unto them the word of the 
Lord, and unto all that were in the house/ ' The 
blessed truth was made effective to all. And the 
jailer " took them" to some place where " he 
washed their stripes and was baptized, he and all 
his straightway." " He believed and rejoiced with 
all his house.' ' They had all heard the gospel, all 
had believed, all were baptized. Now, as a matter 
of course, these disciples would at once show fel- 
lowship with Lydia and those with her. "And 
they went out of the prison (the next morning) 
and entered into the house of Lydia, and when 
they had seen the brethren they comforted them," 
brethren in Lydia' s house. These coming together 
as they were wont, but now meeting in Lydia's 
house in the name of the Lord Jesus, united in 
bond and fellowship and service, would become a 
congregation, an ecclesia, a gospel church of bap- 
tized believers. 

Fellowship, as has been shown, is the essence of 
church relationship, or, as it may be named, church- 
hood. It would be well, would be productive of 



22 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

great benefit both to the person seeking admission 
into the church and to those composing it, if the 
applicant had a summary of the covenant repeated 
to him and was asked if he or she was willing to 
take these covenant vows upon him or her, and 
then, instead of a motion and a second (altogether 
unnecessary, as the church is already moved on 
the question opened before the church), those who 
can freely extend their covenant vows — to watch 
over, pray for, and discharge the duties of one 
member of the body to another — say this by rais- 
ing their hand. It is the ancient way of declaring 
faith and fellowship and of receiving a new-born 
one into the spiritual family. 

To withdraw this fellowship is to expel or ex- 
clude. It is excommunication from communion 
or fellowship. 

A declaration of principles as well as a covenant 
is necessary to a gospel church, that is to say, a 
company of baptized believers in the Lord Jesus 
Christ, fellowshiping each other as one in Christ 
Jesus united, expressed by covenant, should make 
known to all men who wish to know the truths 
which they as a body hold as " the faith once de- 
livered to the saints." Accordingly, when formed 
into a church by covenant or agreement they make 
a " Declaration of Faith." 

This is not a creed in the general meaning of 
that word. It is no imposed formula. It is no 



WHAT CONSTITUTES BELIEVERS A CHURCH ? 23 

authorized dictation of a council. It is not of 
binding force. It may be altered or amended by 
the action of the congregation, the church which 
put it forth. Fidelity and candor call for such a 
declaration, and Baptist churches usually put forth 
or adopt such scriptural avowal of their conception 
of Bible teaching. 

Many such declarations or Confessions of Faith 
are extant. The most pronounced is that put 
forth by " Seven Baptist Churches in London," 
1643, an d republished with amendments in 1689. 

The Philadelphia Association, while not formally 
adopting this, did so by recommending its publica- 
tion. It has since been known as " The Philadel- 
phia Confession. " When a church is organized 
the Confession known as the New Hampshire, 1 or 
some other, is read, and, if approved by the church, 
adopted as expressive of its faith. 

1 Found in Appendix A. 



CHAPTER V 

IS BAPTISM THE DOOR INTO A GOSPEL CHURCH? 

WE must turn to the other general misconcep- 
tion of what constitutes a person a member 
of Christ's church. The Reformers, and Protestants 
generally, with all their apologies for and explana- 
tions of the term invisible as meaning the unseen 
work or "door" into that church, fell back on the 
patristic doctrine that " the sacrament of baptism 
was the door into the church," with no term to 
distinguish it. " In baptism, wherein I was made 
a member of the church," reads the Episcopal 
Catechism, "whereby they that receive baptism 
rightly are grafted into the church." But we need 
not quote from the Confessions and Disciplines of 
the Protestant communions to prove this. It is 
admitted by them that baptism admits into or is 
the door into the church. Now, according to the 
teachings of the New Testament and the essential 
nature and obligations of church-membership, this, 
"which some Baptists hold," is a misconception. 
Doctor Dagg has well said : "Baptism is not, like 
the Lord's Supper, a sacred rite. It signifies the 
fellowship of individual believers with Christ, not 
24 



IS BAPTISM THE DOOR? 25 

the fellowship of believers with one another. The 
obligation to be baptized is independent of the 
obligations to form sacred relations and is prior to 
it. Baptism is therefore a qualification for admis- 
sion into a church as to its external organization, 
but it does not confer membership. ,, l The plain 
statement in regard to the church in Jerusalem 
should at once end all controversy about this : 
" They that gladly received the word were baptized, 
and the same day there were added unto them 
about three thousand souls." Not that all these 
were baptized on the same day. Many, perhaps 
most of them, may have been baptized previously, 
but they were added to the church in fellowship. 
Baptism, as well as conversion or receiving the 
word, was an indispensable prerequisite, but neither 
the one nor the other added these thousands, nor 
Lydia, nor the jailer, nor the eunuch, to the church. 
This was a distinct thing, the expression of fellow- 
ship and assumption of mutual covenant obligation. 
If the following condensed objection to the general 
record, especially of Pedobaptists, be considered, 
we feel assured that the dogma of baptism as the 
door into the church will be abandoned : 

I. If baptism is the door into the Christian 
church, then all whom John baptized (allowing his 
baptism to be gospel baptism) were by the recep- 
tion of this ordinance made members of some 
!See Reynolds' " Church Polity," p. 48. 



26 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

church ; but no such intimation is given in the Scrip- 
tures. The object of John's baptism is declared to 
be " to make ready a people, prepared for the 
Lord." 

2. If baptism is the door into the church, then 
there is no such thing as putting a person out of 
the church, for, in order to do this, he must be 
unbaptized, but this cannot be done. 

3. If baptism is the door into the church, can 
one person constitute a church ? The Christian 
public has answered, "No." And "no" responds 
every passage of the divine oracles wherever the 
name church is mentioned. To what church then 
did the first disciple whom John baptized belong? 
To what church, the first in every instance, where 
none had been previously constituted ? The an- 
swer is obvious, "To no church." If then the 
first person whom John baptized was not by the 
reception of this ordinance constituted a member 
of some church, the second w r as not, nor the third, 
nor any subsequent subject. 

4. In the account of the eunuch's baptism, Acts 
8, no mention is made of his being added to any 
particular church, nor have we any reason to be- 
lieve that he considered the ordinance in this light. 
Indeed, as he was traveling and at considerable 
distance from his own country, such a relation, if 
we suppose it to have been consummated at that 
time, could be of but little avail to him. Nor is 



IS BAPTISM THE DOOR ? 27 

there anything in the account of other baptisms 
which makes this an initiatory ordinance or door 
into the church. It is said, Acts 2:41 : " Then they 
that gladly received the word were baptized, and 
the same day there were added unto them about 
three thousand souls. ,, In the forty-seventh verse : 
" And the Lord added to the church daily such as 
should be saved." But how were they added? 
Here we are not informed. We are told, " They 
that gladly received the word were baptized " ; that 
"they were added to the disciples," and the Lord 
added to the church, but it is not said that they 
were added " by baptism " any more than by gladly 
receiving the word. Both were prerequisites, but 
neither was initiatory. If, then, baptism is not the 
door into the visible church of Christ, it may be 
asked, "What is?" We answer, " Nothing more 
nor less than fellowship." 

By fellowship we are admitted ; and by dis-fel- 
lowship we are excluded. " Is then a person, 
who is received into fellowship as a Christian, to be 
considered as a church-member? " 

We answer, no ; but he must be fellowshiped, as 
an orthodox, baptized, and regular Christian. 

We have endeavored to state as clearly and 
briefly as we could the two errors — the one of the 
Protestants, the other of the Romanists, in regard 
to what constitutes any one a member of a church. 
The one affirms that it is the internal work of 



28 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

grace, the other that it is the sacrament — bap- 
tism. The first, however, is so explained as to 
mean admission into an "invisible church," because 
the "door," or that which conferred membership, 
is invisible. This is borne out by the presence 
of sponsors, who answer for the infant : " I be- 
lieve, I renounce the devil," etc., and then as by this 
profession of faith for the infant, who is baptized as 
the door into the actual one. This is all wrong, 
unscriptural, misleading, and absurd. A church 
of Christ is a company of baptized believers in 
faith and fellowship, united to edify each other, and 
advance the cause and kingdom of Christ. 

Nothing else is a church. We have, therefore, 
found neither precept nor example in the Scrip- 
tures to prove that baptism was ordained specif- 
ically to initiate into a church. Several Baptist 
theologians of eminence have voiced our conclu- 
sion. In his commentary on I Cor. 12 : 13, "By 
one Spirit are we all baptized into one body," Dr. 
Gill observes : " All that are baptized in water are 
not baptized in or by the Spirit, as the case of 
Simon Magus, and that of others, shows ; nor does 
water baptism incorporate persons into a gospel 
church ; they being indeed true believers and bap- 
tized are proper persons to be received into a 
church, but baptism itself does not put them into 
or make them members of it. Persons may be 
baptized in water and never be joined to a church." 



IS BAPTISM THE DOOR? 29 

Andrew Fuller, in a letter addressed to a friend 
on the terms of communion, says: "The nature 
and design of baptism as given us in the New 
Testament, shows it to have been the initiatory 
ordinance of Christianity. It was not, indeed, an 
initiation into a particular church, seeing it was 
instituted prior to the formation of churches, and 
administered, in some cases, as that of the Ethi- 
opian, in which there was no opportunity for join- 
ing to any one of them ; but it was an initiation 
into the body of professing Christians." 

Rev. William Crowell, in his " Church Member's 
Manual," expresses a like view. Of the apostolic 
churches he remarks : "All the members of those 
churches became such by their own voluntary act. 
In other words, each entered freely into a covenant 
with all the other members, and thus became a 
part of a church. The faith of an individual did 
not, of itself, constitute him a member of any par- 
ticular church ; nor did his baptism, which is the 
universal badge of the Christian profession, but his 
voluntary covenant, to walk with the church in the 
commandments and ordinances of the Lord, made 
him a member." 

If baptism is not the rite of initiation, what 
relation does it bear to the church ? Its relation 
to church-membership we take to be two-fold. 
1. It is an indispensable prerequisite or qualifi- 
cation for membership. This is evident from the 



30 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

very nature of baptism as the divinely appointed 
method by which the believer shall avow his faith 
in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. " Go dis- 
ciple the nations, baptizing them into the name 
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
Spirit. ,, 

Profession of faith necessarily precedes en- 
trance into a body of professed Christians ; and 
how shall that profession be made, except as God 
has ordained ? Apostolic practice as to this head 
is very manifest. The three thousand at Pentecost 
were baptized, and then added to the church. As 
soon as Ananias met Paul, visiting him by divine 
direction, he commanded, " Arise, brother Paul, 
and be baptized." The Holy Spirit having fallen 
upon Cornelius and those gathered with him to 
hear Peter, the apostle inquired, "Who can forbid 
water that these should not be baptized who have 
received the Holy Ghost as well as we?" The 
Ethiopian eunuch and Philippian jailer were bap- 
tized immediately upon a profession of faith in 
Christ. This was the uniform procedure of the 
apostles. The first step, after the disciple was 
made, was to baptize him in the name of the Lord. 
2. Baptism imposes upon the baptized an obliga- 
tion to unite with the church. Baptism into the 
name of the Trinity is a vow of subjection to the 
authority and of consecration to the service of 
God, as well as a profession of faith. It is an act 






IS BAPTISM THE DOOR? 3 1 

especially of profound submission to Christ as 
Prophet and King. 

" Now the will of Christ as to the union of his 
followers in organized churches is plain and un- 
equivocal The apostles (the inspired organs of 
Christ's will) organized churches wherever they 
were successful in making converts. For two 
infinitely important ends they were constituted. 
First, that all the gifts of the individual members 
might be made available to the edification of the 
whole body ; and, secondly, that a disciplined and 
organized Christian soldiery might be thrown upon 
the kingdom of darkness. The vow of obedience, 
assumed in baptism to Christ, is a vow to unite, if 
there is opportunity, with his churches, in the 
accomplishment of their sublime mission. To 
refuse to do so, when the way is open in the provi- 
dence of God, is rebellion against Christ and a 
violation of the baptismal covenant." l 

The constituents of a gospel church are im- 
mersed believers, who have been called, cleansed, 
and sanctified by the Spirit of God ; they are 
spiritual stones, "built upon the foundation of the 
apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being 
the chief corner-stone, in which all the building, 
fitly framed together, groweth unto a holy temple 
in the Lord." 

This gospel truth is repeatedly emphasized, be- 

*J. W. Warder, " Christian Repository," 1859. 



32 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

cause it is so generally overlooked or denied, and 
the gospel ecclesia — the separate, independent, local- 
ized church — has been made to mean a multifarious 
mass of heterogeneous, of " christened, indiscrim- 
inate" people, or else a conference, the " general 
assembly," the council : and then Christianity in 
the abstract, and then the consensus of religious 
opinion or action. 

The great apostasy is mainly the perversion of 
the meaning and nature of a gospel church. From 
this nearly all the destructive errors of Romanism 
spring. 



CHAPTER VI 

NOTES AND COMMENTS CHURCH FELLOWSHIP 

WHILE the foregoing extracts from current 
Baptist documents are "waymarks" of 
Baptist principles and usages, they are by no 
means clothed with a sanctity, or even of prece- 
dent, giving them authority, or calling for servile 
imitation. They are only the expressions or con- 
victions of wise godly men in accord with the 
conviction of a church and carried out in their 
church voluntarily. They are to be respected. 
They are helps. 

The New Testament only in all things is the 
guide-book and directory of Baptist churches. 
The constitution and the constituents of a gospel 
church are summed up in brief in the following : 
" Where two or three are gathered together in my 
name, there am I in the midst of them" (Matt. 
1 8 : 20). 

This is the initial outline of a gospel church. 
Wherever two or three baptized believers are 
assembled and organized in the name and in 
accordance with the laws of Christ, there is a 
gospel church. Of its characteristics it will be no- 

C 33 



34 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

ticed : It was an assembly. "Tell it to the 
church." Here it is evident that it was an assembly 
of disciples, to which the offended brother could 
tell his grievances. It was to the church assembled 
to which these grievances were to be told, and not 
to officers or representatives. And the church 
thus assembled was to hear the complaint, presented 
to each one individually, as much as to the whole 
collectively. It was an organized assembly. Its 
organized character is evident from the fact it was 
authorized to "hear," to judge, and to decide ; and 
its decision was to be authoritative and final. " If 
he will not hear the church, let him be to thee 
as an heathen man and a publican." But further 
than this, the very enrollment of its members is 
given in the first organized church on earth. " The 
number of names together was about a hundred 
and twenty" (Acts I : 15). And further we find 
this body consisting of enrolled members, deliber- 
ating and voting. 

It was, therefore, a local assembly. This is, of 
course, self-evident from the facts above given. It 
was called "the church at Jerusalem." They 
met in one place for worship, "were all with one 
accord in Solomon's porch." 

It was necessarily a visible assembly. And 
although the term "church" is sometimes used in 
the more extended sense of the "general assembly 
and congregation of the first-born, whose names 



NOTES AND COMMENTS 35 

are written in heaven," united to Christ, and one 
and complete in him, yet wherever it is used in 
reference to an organized body — one constituted 
to exercise the functions of ecclesiastical govern- 
ment, execute the laws of Christ, and maintain the 
ordinances of the gospel — it means a local visible 
assembly. Not a single exception to this can be 
found. 

It was, therefore, a distinct assembly. From the 
first it was known as the "church at Jerusalem, ,, 
and after other churches were constituted, the 
"church at Jerusalem " was ever distinguished from 
a the churches throughout Judea, Galilee, Samaria/' 
and elsewhere, by their local names. 

It was a voluntary assembly. None were forced 
into it against or without their own consent. 
Adapted to man's individual wants, it pressed 
its claim on his personal, soul-felt obedience. A 
descendant of Abraham, or the servant of an Israel- 
ite, was initiated into the national compact with or 
against his will. The yoke was placed upon him. 
But he who would be a disciple of Christ must take 
up his (own) cross and follow him ; must take his 
yoke upon him. Voluntary submission, voluntary 
obedience was, and ever must be, essential to 
membership in a gospel church. It is a visible, 
immovable landmark ; and wherever it is wanting, 
a gospel church is wanting also. 

It was further, a spiritual assembly. As a man 



36 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

by birth claims the rights and privileges of an 
American citizen, so a man by birth claimed the 
rights and privileges of a Jew. He inherited by 
natural descent all that pertained to his nation. 
They were born Jews. Believers are born from 
above — born of the Spirit. 

But those who can rightfully claim the bless- 
ings of Christ's church must be born from above. 
" Not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of 
the will of man, but of God." "He was in the 
world" — not the Jewish church — "and the world 
was made by him " — and thus was his own — " and 
the world knew him not," " but as many as received 
him to them" — and them only — "gave he power 
to become the sons of God," "fellow-citizens with 
the saints, and of the household of God." 

It had its inviolable terms of admission. The 
Saviour, we are told, "made and baptized disci- 
ples." In accordance with this example, he com- 
missioned his apostles to "disciple (or teach) all 
nations ; baptizing them in the name of the Father, 
Son, and Holy Spirit." Under this Commission the 
apostles proclaimed the Messiahship of Jesus, 
calling on the Jews to "repent and be baptized, 
every one of you, for the remission of sins, and ye 
shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." And 
when, through the instrumentality of the apostles 
and the divine agency of the Holy Spirit, they were 
"pricked to the heart," and "had received the 



NOTES AND COMMENTS 37 

word," they were " added to the church " by being 
" buried with Christ in baptism/' they solemnly 
thereby "gave themselves to the Lord and to each 
other," taking the solemn vow upon them " to walk 
in newness of life." "This radical change," says 
Dr. Harris, "must take place before they are 
admitted into the church. Baptism is the vestibule 
or entrance into this spiritual temple — the church. 
So that before his disciples can pass the threshold 
he requires of them to receive the imprint of the 
sacred name." That imprint is not the washing 
away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a 
good conscience — the silent response of the soul 
to God's gracious will. 

And here it is well to notice (though somewhat 
out of connection) the figurative, spiritual use of 
the words "body" and "baptism." We read(i Cor. 
12 : 13), "For by one Spirit are we all baptized 
into one body." 

The figurative or spiritual import of this is evi- 
dent. For the Spirit does not baptize. We are told 
of the baptism of the Spirit, never by the Spirit ; 
and as the word "body" in the passage means be- 
lievers, one cannot be baptized into them in a real 
or literal sense. And so the human body with its 
head can only in a very limited way represent 
Christ and his people, for the head could not exist 
without the body. The head is dependent upon 
the heart for continued life, as much as the heart 



38 BAPTIST WAYMAKKS 

is on the head. They are mutually essential and 
dependent. This can in no way be said of Christ 
and his people. And so each word in the passage 
is figurative, not literal, and is introduced by Paul 
to show that the body of believers should live, love, 
work in holy concord under guidance of their 
Lord. To take the passage from its connection, 
overlooking the object of its utterance, and apply 
it to literal baptism, is not only illogical but wrong. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE OFFICERS OF A GOSPEL CHURCH CHOICE, QUALI- 
FICATIONS, AND ORDINATION OF MINISTERS 

THE qualifications and the setting apart of per- 
sons to the gospel ministry are clearly pointed 
out in the New Testament, and also the choice, 
qualifications, and ordination of the only other real 
officers of a church, viz, deacons. The following 
is wisely said in the treatise of discipline of the 
New Jersey Association : 

CALL TO THE MINISTRY. 

" First, of God, styled the inward call, which is a 
zeal for the glory of God in the salvation of the 
souls of men, and a strong desire to be made use- 
ful ; with a persuasion of God's designation of the 
person for that office. This is the voice of God in 
the conscience (Heb. 5:4; 1 Cor. 9 : 16, 17; 
Rom. 10 : 15). 

" Secondly, the person must be called to the 
church whose duty it is to look out for useful 
gifts, and when the church approves, they are by 
action to set him apart, etc. 

The ancient usage of Baptists in this scriptural 

39 



40 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 






action was set forth by the Philadelphia Association : 
" The essence of ordination consists in the call of the 
church by voting in his (the candidate's) favor and 
designating him by said vote to the ministerial work, 
which power it is necessary should be lodged 
somewhere with a view to maintain order ; yet to 
give the designation weight and solemnity, there 
should be a public and formal procedure when we 
instate a person in the ministerial office (I^uke 
10 : I ; Acts 14 : 23 ; Mark 3 : 14). " 

ORDER OF PROCEEDING IN THE ORDINATION OF A 
MINISTER. 

I. Hymn. 

II. Introductory prayer. 

III. Hymn. 

IV. Sermon. 

V. Short address on object of meeting by presiding 
minister. 

VI. Prayer for guidance. 

VII. Questions to the church. 
Question . Who represents this church ? 

Answer. (The person appointed for that purpose rises 
and says : "I do. ' ' ) 

Ques. Is the candidate to be ordained to the office of an 
evangelist or of a pastor ? 

Ans. (As the case may be.) 

VIII. A short address to the candidate, and then pro- 
pound these questions to him : 

Ques. 1. Will you state how and when you became con- 
vinced of your need of religion, and also your personal 
interest in the work of Christ ? 



CHOICE AND ORDINATION 4 1 

Ans. (Candidate relates his Christian experience.) 

Ques. 2. What has influenced you to enter on the work 
of the ministry ? 

Ans. (The candidate relates his call.) 

Ques. j. Do you willingly, and not by constraint, and 
not for personal or lucrative ends, devote yourself to the 
sacred office of the ministry ? 

Ques. 4. Do you firmly believe, and purpose by divine 
assistance, to preach the doctrines of free, rich, and sov- 
ereign grace ? And will you state concisely what those 
truths are which you propose to teach to others ? 

Ans. (States his convictions in regard to inspiration, the 
Trinity, atonement, spiritual influence, repentance, faith, 
justification, sanctification, perseverance of the saints, 
resurrection of the body, and future rewards and punish- 
ments.) 

Ques. J. Do you intend to administer the ordinances 
agreeable to divine authority and practised by the Baptist 
churches ? 

Ans. (Candidate states his views in regard to baptism 
and the Lord's Supper.) 

Moderator. Has any member of the Presbytery any ques- 
tions to ask ? Has any member of this, or any other 
church in fellowship with it, any questions to ask ? 

(To the Presbytery.) Brethren, are you satisfied with the 
answers this brother has given ? 

Ans. We are satisfied. 

(To the church.) Is the church satisfied and still de- 
sirous to proceed with his ordination ? 

(Either a vote of the church is taken or the person ap- 
pointed for the purpose will answer.) 

(To the candidate.) The answers you have given are 
satisfactory, and being assured, as mortals can be, of your 
requisite qualifications, such as your renovation, pious life, 
and abilities, we feel willing to proceed in setting you apart, 



42 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

by the authority of God and this church, more fully to the 
important and solemn work of the ministry. 

IX. The candidate kneels and hands are laid on him. 
X. The ordination prayer. 

XI. The candidate rises and the right hand of fellowship 
is given. 

Usually a Bible is presented to one ordained, with a 
charge by one of the Presbytery (Minutes New Jersey 
Confession, 1820). 



CHAPTER VIII 

A CONFESSION OF FAITH, DELIVERED AT HIS ORDI- 
NATION, BY ABRAHAM BOOTH, FEB. 1 6, 1 769 

" A S it has been customary on these solemn oc- 
]~\ casions, to set forth in order a declaration of 
faith, things which are most surely believed amongst 
us ; and as I am now called upon, in this public 
manner, to make a free and open confession of my 
religious principles, I would look up to the 
Father of lights, and the Spirit of truth, that I 
may be able to make a good profession in the 
presence of many witnesses, in the presence of 
God, of angels, and of men. 

"As the evidence of a Supreme Being, and our 
dependence upon him, is the basis of all religion, 
whether natural or revealed ; I therefore do, first 
of all confess my belief of that great fundamental 
truth. 

"That there is a God, all nature proclaims aloud 
through all her works. The countless tribes of 
animate and inanimate existence, from the highest 
to the lowest vast chain of finite beings, pour in 
their attestation to this most interesting truth. The 
meanest insect, the smallest spear of grass, the 

43 



44 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

minutest grain of sand, these all bear the signature 
of an all-wise Creator. 

" But though the existence of a Supreme Being 
may be clearly seen by the things that are made, 
even his eternal power and godhead ; yet the cir- 
cumstances of mankind have ever been such as to 
render it necessary that a more positive and explicit 
revelation of the perfections and purposes, of the 
works and ways, of the great Creator should b& 
given to them. Infinite wisdom saw it necessary, 
and divine goodness would not withhold the bene- 
fit. Such a revelation, I believe, God has in fact 
given. This revelation, I am fully persuaded, is 
contained in the writings of the Old and New Tes- 
taments, which constitute the book, which is by 
way of eminence called the Bible ; rejecting all 
those writings which are commonly called apocry- 
phal, as making no part in that revelation which 
God has given to mankind. 

" Many are the reasons and various the consid- 
erations which induce me to receive the Bible as a 
divine revelation ; among which the following are 
none the least : The sublimity and spirituality of 
its doctrine. The purity of its precepts. The 
prophecies contained in it, many of which have 
been punctually fulfilled, — especially those relating 
to the Messiah, the calling of the Gentiles, the 
destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish Church- 
State, and the dispersion of the Jews. The char- 



CONFESSION BY ABRAHAM BOOTH 45 

acter of its penmen. The perfect harmony of its 
design fulfilling amongst them, and the grandeur 
of that design. Their unreserved freedom in re- 
lating matters of fact, even when their own repu- 
tation, or the reputation of those whom they greatly 
revered and dearly loved, might seem to be injured 
by such a procedure. And the long series of un- 
controlled miracles that were wrought in proof of 
its doctrines being divine. When to these things I 
add the consideration of that amazing success 
which attended the preaching of a crucified Mes- 
siah and his resurrection from the dead by a few 
illiterate, despised fishermen of Galilee ; men of 
little art or address, and possessed of no civil power 
or authority, and this, notwithstanding both Jews 
and Gentiles had been long in possession of an 
established religion, of which they were tenaciously 
fond ; in vindication of which, and in order to 
crush the Christian cause in its infancy, they both 
agreed to use all their power and policy, all their 
art and sophistry, and every oppressive measure, 
against the preachers and worshipers of the cru- 
cified Jesus. 

" When I reflect upon those complicated suffer- 
ings and continual hardships which the first preach- 
ers of the gospel underwent, and that without the 
least profit of any temporal emolument, for all 
their pains and sufferings, for all their labors and 
hardships, yet doing all, suffering all, with a meek- 



46 BAPTIST WAYMARRS 

ness and patience astonishing to their very enemies ; 
when I consider, that all these labors and suffer- 
ings were performed and undergone by them, in 
order to propagate a system of doctrines and prac- 
tices directly opposite to all the prejudices of their 
own education, to all the fond hopes they in par- 
ticular, and the Jews in general, had conceived 
concerning their long-expected Messiah, for whom 
they had been taught to look under the character 
of a secular prince, one whose kingdom should be 
of this world ; when I consider the apostles, who 
were all Jews, as entirely renouncing their national 
prejudices, and acting under the uniform influence 
of such maxims as were diametrically opposite, yet 
perfectly agreeable to what had been often repeat- 
edly foretold by the ancient prophets, I receive 
additional confirmation. When I further consider 
what stupid ignorance has universally prevailed as 
to the interest of religion and the important con- 
cern of the soul, even to the most polished nations 
in former or latter times, where the Jewish and 
Christian revelation has not been at all known or 
regarded ; when I consider the moral state of 
mankind in general, and that of my own soul in 
particular, and compare it with those descriptions 
given of it in that ancient volume, together with that 
provision which I am informed from thence God 
has graciously made to supply all my spiritual wants ; 
finally, when I consider the holy influence which 



CONFESSION BY ABRAHAM BOOTH 47 

the sincere belief of its doctrines has upon the 
moral conduct of all those who conscientiously ad- 
here to its sacred dictates, and how its precepts 
and prohibitions are uniformly adapted to promote 
the good of civil society and the best interest of 
mankind ; I say, when I attentively consider these 
various particulars, with others which might be 
mentioned, I cannot hesitate a single moment to 
pronounce it a divine revelation, and every way 
worthy its infinite author. The Scriptures of the 
Old and New Testament, containing a well-attested 
revelation from God, my Maker and my Sovereign, 
I therefore look upon and receive as the only rule 
of my faith and practice. 

" This divine book, this heavenly volume, I ac- 
cept with humility and gratitude from the hand of 
my adored Creator, as a gift of inestimable value ; 
and, considering it as the grand charter of my 
eternal salvation, I cannot but esteem it as my in- 
dispensable duty implicitly to submit to its sacred 
dictates in every affair of religious concernment 

"And it is because I am fully persuaded that the 
following doctrines are contained in those oracles 
of eternal truth, that I embrace them, as articles 
of my faith, as the foundation of my hope, and as 
the source of all my spiritual joy. 

" I acknowledge myself deeply indebted to the 
inspired volume for my clearest apprehensions and 
most satisfactory discoveries of the Divine Being. 



48 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

It is from hence I learn, with undoubted certainty, 
that there is but One God ; that he is possessed of 
absolute and infinite perfection ; and that he 
governs the world ; his providence extending to all 
his creatures and all their actions. 

" From the same source of heavenly intelligence 
I am informed that in unity of the divine essence 
there are three distinct persons, the Father, the 
Son, and the Holy Ghost, who are all represented 
as bearing divine names, possessing divine attri- 
butes, performing divine works, and receiving di- 
vine honors, consequently must be one in essence 
and equal in glory, whatever inferiority there may 
be in respect to office in the economy of redemp- 
tion. The reality of these things I firmly believe 
on the authority of God's own declaration, though 
their particular modus greatly exceeds my feeble 
comprehension. I believe, wonder, and adore. 
I believe that in the beginning God created the 
heavens and the earth, with all their numerous 
inhabitants. Last of all, and nobly conspicuous 
amongst the amazingly diversified productions of 
his almighty power and infinite skill, being little 
inferior to the angels in light, he created man and 
constituted him lord of this lower world. Male 
and female created he them, after his own image 
and in his own likeness ; upright, innocent, and 
holy ; capable of serving and glorifying their boun- 
tiful Creator. On the same divine warrant I be- 



CONFESSION BY ABRAHAM BOOTH 49 

lieve that man did not long continue in these holy 
and happy circumstances, but, being left to the 
freedom of his own will, he transgressed the law 
which his maker and sovereign had given him, in 
consequence of which he fell into a state of guilt, 
depravity, and ruin. And as he was not only the 
natural but federal head and representative of his 
unborn posterity, he sinning, all his offspring sinned 
in him and fell with him, the guilt of his first sin 
and a corrupt nature derived to all who descend 
from him by natural generation. Hence it is that 
all men are by nature the children of wrath ; averse 
to all that is spiritually good and prone to evil ; 
dead in sin, under the curse of the righteous law, 
and obnoxious to eternal vengeance, from which 
conditions of complicated misery there is no deliv- 
erance but by Jesus Christ, the second Adam. 

" On the authority of the unerring word I further 
believe that the eternal sovereign, before the world 
began, of his own good pleasure and to manifest 
the riches of his glorious grace, foreseeing the fall 
of man, chose a certain number of this apostate 
race to eternal salvation, whom he predestinated 
to the adoption of children of Jesus Christ accord- 
ing to his own sovereign will ; and, in pursuance of 
this grand and gracious design, he entered into a 
covenant of grace and peace with the Son of his 
love on their behalf, in which a Saviour was ap- 
pointed and all spiritual blessings provided for them. 



50 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

"In order to accomplish these gracious purposes 
of infinite mercy and eternal love toward apostate, 
miserable wretches, I believe that the Son of God, 
being appointed from everlasting the mediator of 
the covenant and having engaged as surety on the 
behalf of his people, who were become his care 
and charge, did, in the fullness of time, become 
incarnate, took upon him the form of a servant, 
paid the most consummate obedience to the divine 
law, perfectly performed the will of his Father, 
and, finally, having all the sins of all his people 
imputed to him and charged upon him, he died 
the ignominious, the painful, and perfect death of 
the cross, pouring out his blood, yielding up his 
life, and offering his very soul a sacrifice, a vicarious, 
atoning sacrifice for their sins, and to expiate their 
innumerable and enormous crimes. In these suf- 
ferings of the Son of God on the cross I behold in 
the clearest light the infinite evil of sin displayed 
and the awful wrath of God revealed against it, the 
law magnified, justice satisfied, and God himself 
well pleased. 

" I believe that Jesus the crucified arose from the 
dead the third day, by which he gave the highest 
possible evidence that the debt that he became 
responsible for was perfectly paid, the sins for 
which he suffered entirely expiated, the divine law 
and divine justice fully satisfied, the powers of 
darkness vanquished, and death itself overcome, at 



CONFESSiON BY ABRAHAM BOOTH 5 1 

the same time declaring, in a way superior to all 
the power of language, that the sleeping dust of 
his saints shall be raised to a state of immortal life 
and endless glory. 

" I believe that, in order to the perfect perform- 
ance of the various branches of his grand under- 
taking, having given undeniable evidence to his 
selected few that he was risen indeed, and, having 
imputed to them the necessary instructions before 
his final departure, he ascended triumphant to the 
right hand of the majesty on high, where he shines 
and reigns the incarnate God. There he is exalted 
as head over all things for the good of his church, 
having the reins of government in both worlds put 
into his hands, so that he is not only to be acknowl- 
edged as king of Zion and ruler in his church, but 
also as the God of providence and governor of the 
world. There also, as our ascended Redeemer, 
our exalted Head, having entered those blissful 
abodes as the forerunner of his people and taken 
possession of them as their representative, he ever 
lives to plead all his merits, to improve all his 
influence as a faithful intercessor, as a prevailing 
advocate, on their behalf. Hence it is that our 
faith in the time of trial shall not entirely fail, that 
our prayers are heard and our praises ascend with 
acceptance before the eternal throne. According 
to the same sacred canons of my faith and practice 
I believe the justification of sinners in the sight of 



52 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 



God is purely, solely, entirely by the righteousness 
of Christ imputed to them, without the considera- 
tion of any holy qualities wrought in them or by 
any works of righteousness performed by them 
either with or without the assistance of the Holy 
Spirit. 

" I believe the absolute necessity of regeneration 
in order to eternal life, and am fully persuaded 
that without holiness, that is, a real love of God 
producing cheerful obedience to his commands, 
no man, whatever his religious pretensions or pro- 
fessions may be, shall see the Lord. 

" I believe that regeneration, faith, and sanctifi- 
cation are not the produce of a man's free will and 
power, but the effects of a divine agency by the 
word of truth. 

" I believe the certain, infallible perseverance in 
grace to glory, of all those who are regenerated by 
the Spirit of God, and justified by the obedience 
of Christ; they being kept by the power of God 
through faith unto salvation. 

"As Jesus Christ, the great head of the church, 
has instituted various ordinances to be observed 
by his people until his second coming ; which are 
designed, under a divine influence, to promote their 
edification in all the graces and comforts of the 
Holy Spirit ; so, I believe, he has appointed two 
positive institutions, the observance of which he 
has in a particular manner enjoined upon all his 






CONFESSION BY ABRAHAM BOOTH S3 

followers : that is, Baptism and the Lord's Supper ; 
and the former as previously necessary to the latter. 

" I believe that baptism is immersion in water, in 
the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the 
Holy Ghost ; and is a lively emblem of the death, 
burial, and resurrection of Jesus, as the represent- 
ative of his people ; and of their being cleansed 
from sin in the fountain of his blood, their dying to 
it, and rising again to newness of life. The requi- 
site qualifications for this ordinance are, I further 
believe, faith in the Redeemer, and a possession of 
it. Nor does it appear from the command of 
Christ, or the practice of his apostles, that we have 
any authority to administer this ordinance in any 
other way than immersion, or to any other subjects 
than such who appear, in a judgment of charity, to 
be thus qualified. 

" The Lord's Supper is an ordinance in which, by 
receiving the elements of bread and wine, accord- 
ing to the appointment of Christ, we show forth 
his death. And is designed, I am persuaded, to 
impress our minds with a lively sense of the evil of 
sin, the sufferings of Jesus for it, the benefits derived 
to us through those sufferings, together with that 
union and communion we have with him, and one 
with another. 

" It is appointed for man once to die ; and as at 
death the body is resolved into its primitive dust, 
so the immortal spirit returns to God who gave it. 



54 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

The souls of believers being dislodged from their 
earthly mansions, and made perfect in holiness, do, 
I believe, immediately enter into glory ; but those 
of the wicked are immediately transformed into the 
abodes of darkness and despair, and are reserved 
under everlasting chains with apostate angels till 
the judgment of the great day. 

" I believe that there will be a resurrection of the 
dead, both of the just and unjust; and that God 
has appointed a day in which he will judge them 
in righteousness by Jesus Christ. At which awful 
and glorious period all nations will be convened 
before his great tribunal. Then will Jesus, the 
judge, make an everlasting separation between the 
righteous and the wicked, awarding eternal life and 
infinite happiness to the righteous, but everlasting 
death and never-ending torment to the wicked. 
The equity of which sentence on either part, I am 
fully persuaded, will be admitted and applauded 
by all holy intelligences, and acknowledged even 
by the damned themselves to their aggravated woe. 
The sentence passed, speedy execution shall follow. 
For at the conclusion of the august, the solemn 
scene, the wicked shall go away, appalled and 
reluctant, into everlasting burnings ; but the right- 
eous, cheerful and exulting, into eternal life. 

" Such are the leading articles of my faith ; such 
the sentiments of my heart. These things, as a 
Christian, I again declare I believe, and trust that 



CONFESSION BY ABRAHAM BOOTH 55 

in some degree I have experienced their powerful, 
comforting, sanctifying influence on my own soul. 
Such also are the doctrines I am determined, by 
divine assistance, to preach, and to make the 
important subjects of my future ministrations. 
Notwithstanding, as I pretend not to infallibility of 
judgment, or to know all that is to be known in 
the present imperfect state considering Christ or 
his kingdom, I desire ever to have a mind open to 
conviction and susceptible of truth, by whatever 
means it may please God to inform me of it ; and 
when known to communicate it to others as cases 
and circumstances may require. 

" Further, I acknowledge it as my indispensable 
duty to cultivate a friendly freedom and brotherly 
affection with all those who love our Lord Jesus 
Christ in sincerity, and bear his image. Such, of 
whatever denomination they be, I desire to esteem 
as brethren, members of the same mystical body, 
and fellow-heirs of the same eternal inheritance. 

" And now to him who purchased the church with 
his own blood, who walks in the midst of the 
seven golden candlesticks, and exercises a tender 
care over the weakest and meanest of his flock ; 
to him I say, and for the edification of his people, 
those especially of this congregation, do I now 
desire to devote my strength, my life, my all, to be 
employed now, and as long as his unerring wisdom 
shall direct and appoint. 



56 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

" And the Lord grant that I may obtain mercy 
to be found faithful in that ministry I receive from 
him, living under the habitual remembrance of that 
awful account I am to render to him ; that so, 
after I have preached to others, I myself may not 
become a castaway ; being fully persuaded that a 
damned minister of the gospel is the most shocking 
character in hell ; but, taking heed to myself and 
to my doctrine may be enabled to give up my 
accounts with joy in the presence of our Lord Jesus 
Christ at his coming. And it is in him I desire to 
be found at the last, the universal audit ; so it is in 
his name I humbly go forth to the important, the 
arduous, the honorable work. On him I depend 
for assistance in it ; to him I look for success in 
the performance of it. O my God, my adored 
Redeemer, my infinite, eternal all, let my soul, and 
the souls of my hearers, be ever precious in thy 
sight. And grant that after the exercise of much 
fervent, mutual love, and the enjoyment of many 
comforts, in these thy lower courts, we may finally 
arrive at those blissful regions, where love is perfect, 
and joy perpetual ; where hymns of holy wonder 
and songs of devout praise shall be our uninter- 
rupted and everlasting employ. Amen and 
Amen." ! 

1 Abraham Booth is known to be one of the ablest men whose 
character and writings adorn Baptist history. He is the author 
of " Reign of Grace " and " Pedobaptist Examined." The fore- 
going is from a pamphlet printed by a member of the old Good- 



CHAPTER IX 

LAYING ON OF HANDS IN ORDINATION 

THE imposition of the hands of a presbytery, 
or number of ministers, is questioned by 
many Baptists, and indeed so is ordination in 
any way. " Its essence,' ' as says the Philadelphia 
Confession, " or essences clothe themselves in 
fitting forms and fitting apparel/' or in New Tes- 
tament language, " separating " unto the work of 
the ministry, is a "fitting form" with which to 
clothe that "essence." Dr. Thomas Armitage, in 
his voluminous " Baptist History," describes ordina- 
tion as usually observed by Baptists. Spurgeon 
refused to be ordained. He never was formally 
set apart to the ministry. More ministers from his 
college and others under his influence held similar 
views about it and acted accordingly. 

Many of our influential ministers in the West, 
while approving of an ordaining council, or pres- 
bytery, and when invited, acting with it in the 

man Fields Church, London, soon after Mr. Booth's ordination. 
It was found by me in a bundle of old pamphlets in a large 
second-hand "book shop" in the neighborhood of the old 
church, and is, so far as I could learn, the only copy extant. — 
S. H. F. 

57 



58 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

examination and other requirements, would refuse 
positively to join in the form of laying on of hands. 

The reasons for refusal were: (i) There is no 
gift or special enduement bestowed or commu- 
nicated in ordination. Laying on of hands was for 
such gift or enduement ; therefore, as the one has 
ceased, so ought the other. (2) It is a form with 
an ecclesiastical object or purpose and leads to 
clerical protection on the one hand and to unmean- 
ing formalities on the other. 

To this it may be replied : that the laying on of 
hands did not necessarily impart gifts or communi- 
cate spiritual fullness or power. It was done for 
these reasons : Paul was commissioned a minister 
of the gospel by the Lord Jesus directly from 
heaven. " And straightway he preached Christ in 
the synagogue. ,, " He increased the more in 
strength." He solemnly declared that he did not 
receive appointment of men, " neither went I up to 
Jerusalem to those who were apostles before." 

Barnabas, like Paul, was an acknowledged 
preacher of the gospel. He it was who introduced 
Paul to the church at Jerusalem. 

But now when the Holy Spirit " called" these 
two to the special mission, he mysteriously commu- 
nicated to the teachers and ministers and the 
church at Antioch saying : u Separate me Barna- 
bas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called 
them. And when they had fasted and prayed and 



LAYING ON OF HANDS IN ORDINATION 59 

laid their hands on them, they sent them away " 
(Acts 13 : 2, 3). 

There was no gift imparted in this setting apart, 
The laying on of hands was not for any such pur- 
pose. It was an action in harmony with their 
prayer. It was a silent invocation of God's bless- 
ing. Laying on of hands is not confined to the 
impartation of spiritual gifts. And so Jesus laid 
his hands on the little ones as he blessed them, but 
imparted no gift in this action. 

The laying on of hands immediately after bap- 
tizing a believer has no example in the New Testa- 
ment — except when it was done to impart mirac- 
ulous gifts. Cornelius and those with him received 
the miraculous gift of the Holy Spirit before bap- 
tism. Peter commanded them to be baptized, but 
no hand-laying took place, else it would have been 
recorded. 

The same may be said of the Samaritan believers. 
It was not immediately on their baptism, but some 
time afterward, that the apostles laid hands on 
them that they might receive miraculous gifts. The 
same is true of the twelve disciples at Ephesus. 

Ordination is a recognition and an approval by 
the surrounding ministiy and churches of the acts 
of the church in appointing, or selecting, the one 
ordained to the ministry. 

They ask these ministers, or rather churches 
through them, to inquire into, to approve or disap- 



60 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

prove of the action of the church ; if approved, to 
endorse that action, so that the candidate may be 
received by the churches as a regular and approved 
minister of the Lord Jesus. 

Baptists throughout the West and South gener- 
ally adhere to this scriptural form. But what is 
called " installation' ' (an Episcopal ceremony) by 
the presbytery, an empty ceremony, is seldom or 
never performed or admitted by Baptist churches. 



CHAPTER X 

QUALIFICATIONS, DUTIES, AND ORDINATION OF 
DEACONS 

THE " Philadelphia Confession," from which 
have been quoted the forms of ordination, 
has thus a clear statement of the only other office 
of a gospel church. Before quoting it let it be 
noticed : 

The great ingathering in the church at Jerusa- 
lem, followed immediately by persecution, brought 
many of the poor into it. They were doubtless 
made poorer by their union with the church. 

There was, therefore, a general destitution among 
them. "They which had possessions sold them 
and parted them to all, and had all things in com- 
mon, as every man had need." But unequal dis- 
tribution, as a matter of course, occurred in minis- 
tering to such a multitude. Hence Peter (as the 
spokesman for the apostles) proposed that men 
should be chosen for this business, so as not to in- 
terfere with the ministry of the word by the apos- 
tles. Peter's address was to the assembled brethren 
(that is, to the whole church), that of those men who 
have companied with us all the time " that the Lord 

61 



62 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 






Jesus went in and out before us, must one be 
ordained," chosen, set apart. "And they," the 
church-members, "appointed or nominated two 
of them, and they gave forth their lots." They 
cast their ballots, or voted, and Matthias was 
chosen. This was the act of the church. No 
apostle interferred. 

" He was numbered with the eleven apostles." 

The same is true of the deacon, as we shall see. 
It is the church that appoints, by vote, its officers. 
" Look ye out among you seven men of honest re- 
port, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom 
we may appoint over this business" (Acts 6 : 3). 

It " pleased the whole multitude," and they chose 
seven men, "whom they set before the apostles : and 
when they had prayed, they laid their hands on 
them (Acts 6 : 6). 

Baptists have ever denied the clerical function of 
deacons, and they should promptly rebuke any 
such unwarranted encroachments. 

Paul's statement of the qualifications of a deacon, 
includes his domestic life, as does also his statement 
of a bishop's qualifications. 

" Let the deacon be the husband of one wife." 
This it is thought by many to refer to polygamy, 
and that though a member might have two living 
wives, a bishop or deacon must have only one. 
Baptists hold that these instructions are literal, and 
that they apply to all times ; that no polygamist 



ORDINATION OF DEACONS 63 

was received into those apostolic churches, and 
that it means what it says. A deacon should be a 
married man. 

THE ORDINATION OF DEACONS. 

It is as plain as the starlight, that when the 
church at Jerusalem chose their deacons, the apos- 
tles ordained them, set them apart. " Whom they 
set before the apostles : and when they had prayed, 
they laid their hands upon them" (Acts 6:6). 
Baptists generally adhere to this gospel precedent. 
It is neglected or omitted in some parts of the 
United States ; but where this is the case, generally 
other gospel usages are also omitted. 

The waymarks of the Baptists show a sacred 
adherence to every precept and example in the 
gospel, and the solemn setting apart of deacons as 
one of these is clearly stated. 

Gospel example is followed throughout the 
South and Southwest. 1 

THE QUALIFICATIONS OF DEACONS. 

I. The deacons were to serve tables, that is, 
attend to the business matters or temporal affairs 
of the church. 

1 Of the offices of a trustee, secretary, and treasurer there is 
no need of remarks, further than that the law makes it necessary 
that church property be held by trustees chosen by the church or 
church authority ; that a secretary is necessary to record the acts 
of the church, and keep its minutes ; that a treasurer is necessary 
to record and distribute the funds of the church. 



64 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 



2. They were to be godly men, and of course 
tried men. 

3. They were to be men of good report — of 
standing and character, both in and out of the 
church. 

4. They were to be men of sense, wisdom, 
business men. 

THEIR DUTIES. 

1. Their business was and is to "serve tables," 
that is, to attend to the table of the poor. "The 
poor," said the Lord Jesus, "ye have with you 
always," so "remember the poor" is a special 
apostolic injunction. Deacons are especially for 
that, and deacons veiy frequently think that they 
are for everything in the church but this. 

2. Their business was and is to provide for the 
table, the needs of the minister or bishop of the 
church. He sows to them spiritual things, he 
should reap of their carnal things. But he is not 
to be the reaper, the collector, or gleaner. Deacons 
are for this very thing — to glean the carnal things 
for the pastor's support. The deacon who has not 
this business on his heart, and who is not active or 
wise in its discharge, ought to give up the office. 

3. The business of a deacon is to attend to the 
Lord's table — to provide the elements for the ordi- 
nance, and wait upon the people who are gathered 
as a church to celebrate the Lord's death. 

4. His duty is to superintend the ordinance of 






ORDINATION OF DEACONS 65 

baptism ; likewise assist the pastor and candidates, 
for the proper administration, that all may be done 
decently and in order. (Minutes of Philadelphia 
Association.) 

But in our estimation he has no spiritual authority 
or superintendence in matters of church government. 
He is not one of the pastor's "cabinet." He has no 
right to assume, because of his office, either as an 
individual deacon or as one of the " Board of 
Deacons," to examine the fitness of persons to be- 
come members of the church ; to decide who shall 
be expelled or to petition the pastor to resign. 
Indeed, all acts of deacons, as such, beyond the 
strictly temporal affairs of the congregation are un- 
scriptural, presumptuous, and dangerous to the 
peace of the church. 






CHAPTER XI 



PUBLIC WORSHIP 



THE injunction in the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
" Forsake not the assembling of yourselves 
together," is recognized by Baptists as obligatory 
upon each member of a church, when circum- 
stances permit. The assembly is for worship. It 
meets by the command of Jesus and in his name. 

I. TRUE WORSHIP. 

Worship is a law of human nature. Man every- 
where (unless reduced by savagery or moral and 
mental deformity to the level of the brute) is im- 
pelled by his very manhood to worship some one 
or something which or whom he considers to be 
superior to himself and from which or from whom 
he seeks help. 

Religious dread and hope are common to every 
sane human being. This universal fact need not 
be elaborated. It is admitted and unquestion- 
able. It is only the fool that "hath said in his 
heart there is no God," and that therefore there is 
nothing to worship. 

But true worship, that is spiritual worship, the 
66 



PUBLIC WORSHIP 67 

adoration and the burden and desire of the soul 
going up to the Eternal Spirit, depraved man 
knows nothing of and cares nothing about. It is 
the carnal or sensuous, the tangible and visible, 
that attracts him and calls forth his devotions. 

The beauty that beams from the sun and moon 
and starlit skies, the forces voiced from the thunder 
cloud in the desolating storm, and the overwhelm- 
ing floods, impress him with fear of some higher 
power and also of a consciousness of guilt. He 
forms his conception into a eidolon, idol, something 
seen, and bows down to it as the image of the un- 
known. From the embruted savage in the jungle 
to the Grecian philosopher on the mountain of 
light and thought, it is still as expressed by the 
Apostle Paul, " Professing themselves to be wise, 
they became fools and changed the glory of the 
incorruptible God into an image like unto corrupt- 
ible man, . . and to birds and to four-footed 
beasts and creeping things," and this sensuous 
carnal worship reaches its climax when, in the name 
of the gospel, in the ceremony of elevating the 
" host," priests pretend to change the wafer into the 
veritable Son of God, and worship it as the " soul, 
body, and divinity" of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

That glorious Lord and Redeemer, referring to 
the grand Jewish temple, with all its gorgeous cere- 
monials, and to the rival temple on Mount Geri- 
zim, declared with authoritative emphasis : " But 



68 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

the hour cometh and now is when the true wor- 
shipers shall worship the Father." And why? 
The Lord Jesus declared, " God is a Spirit, and 
they that worship him must worship him in spirit 
and in truth" (John 4 : 24) : " In spirit" — with the 
inner soul, not by external forms of bowing and gen- 
uflexions and repetitions of dead men's prayers ; not 
by processions and holy water and monkish garbs. 
These are not worship ; they are its simulacra, its 
effigy. Worship in spirit flings these things to the 
winds and draws nigh in soul-communion to the 
unveiled mercy-seat. " In truth," or in reality and 
sincerity, with a consciousness of sinfulness and a 
faith in God's readiness to forgive and bless for 
Christ's sake. It is the individual soul that is to 
draw nigh to God in earnest simplicity and have 
trust in the atoning work of Christ. It is not the 
hollow shows of pompous rituals with gorgeous 
trappings or artistic accompaniments. It is not 
recitations in songs and prayers of vain repetitions. 
It is not the laceration of the body in what the 
apostle calls " bodily exercise." It is, it must be, 
worship in spirit and in truth — the human spirit, 
in humble, trusting, loving faith and fervor, ap- 
proaching the eternal Spirit, God the Father, who 
seeketh such to worship him. He will accept no 
worship but that. Worshiping him in spirit and in 
truth must proceed from a spiritual principle, not 
from the lash of conscience or the transient dread 



PUBLIC WORSHIP 69 

of danger or death. The heartless habit or the 
imposed penance (as it is called) of devotees 
springs from no spiritual principle, it is carnal. It 
is not "the spirit of prayer and grace of supplica- 
tion." There is no heart dependence on the aid of the 
Holy Spirit, or looking to the Advocate at God's 
right hand who makes intercession for transgressors. 
The true worshipers are they who " worship God 
in the spirit, and rejoice in Jesus Christ, and have no 
confidence in the flesh" (Phil. 3: 3). 

Worshiping him in spirit and in truth must be 
according to the gospel. " Holy places," "holy 
pictures," "holy wells," "holy water," "holy altars," 
"holy rituals," have no place in the gospel, and all 
such worship or accompaniments of worship are 
neither in spirit nor in truth, but carnal and false. 
Worship in "spirit and in truth" must be in the 
soul's exercise of spiritual affections, humility, peni- 
tence, hope, faith, love, adoration, and joy in the 
Lord Jesus Christ Worship "in spirit and in 
truth" must be with the aid of the Holy Spirit. 

There can be no spiritual worship without the 
Holy Spirit making intercession within us, so says 
God's word (Rom. 8 : 26), and so experience proves. 

II. PRAISE THE HIGHEST FORM OF WORSHIP. 

Hundreds of times the command "Praise ye 
the Lord," is given for every once "Pray unto the 
Lord." For praise is adoration, prayer is petition. 



JO BAPTIST WAYMARKS 






" In the midst of the congregation will I sing 
praises unto thee," is quoted and appropriated by 
Paul from the Psalms (Heb. 2 : 12), and the crown- 
ing glory of Christ's consummated work is de- 
scribed as an ocean peal of song, a thunder-voiced 
anthem of praise from hallowed human lips : "And 
a voice came out of the throne, saying, Praise our 
God, all ye his servants, and ye that fear him, both 
small and great. And I heard as it were the voice of 
a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, 
and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, 
Alleluia : for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. 
Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him : 
for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife 
hath made herself ready " (Rev. 19 : 5-7). 

Singing his praises is the -duty and the joy of the 
organized congregation, and it will be the duty and 
the joy of the unorganized congregation of the re- 
deemed at his coming. Praise ye the Lord. 

The apostle embodies the doctrine and service 
of faith and worship in these profound words : 
"Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all 
wisdom ; teaching and admonishing one another in 
psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with 
grace in your hearts to the Lord" (Col. 3 : 16). 

III. WHO SHOULD SING IN DIVINE WORSHIP. 

To praise God is a universal duty. It is the 
acknowledgment of his power and glory. "Let 



PUBLIC WORSHIP J I 

the people praise thee, O God ; let all the people 
praise thee" — that is, declare his presence, his 
justice, and his mercy. " One generation shall 
praise thy works to another and shall declare 
thy mighty acts." "All thy works shall praise 
thee, O Lord, and thy servants shall bless thee." 
The heavens declare his glory, his praises, as 
in universal sphere-melody, come up eternally to 
his throne from unnumbered worlds : " Let the 
heaven and the earth praise him, the seas, and 
every thing that moveth therein" (Ps. 69 : 34). 
"And let all the people praise thee," and "Surely 
the wrath of man shall praise thee : the re- 
mainder of wrath shalt thou restrain " (Ps. 76 : 10). 
But this general command and duty is not the 
soul-expression of love and trust of spiritual wor- 
ship. God's works praise him, but do not worship 
him in spirit and in truth. Man's wrath shall 
praise him, but this is not loving worship. The 
music and song in the temple service was ritual 
and typical. Its rites and types are passed away. 
The splendid " Holy House " dissolved in flames. 
Its imposing ceremonial was buried in silence. 
Its singers and its singing were like its priests, 
and its " meats and drinks and divers washings 
were carnal ordinances imposed on them till the 
time of reformation." Worship in spirit and in 
truth ; singing with the spirit and the understand- 
ing also — the melody of heart attuned by grace and 



' 



72 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

voice and grateful adoring love — is the new song 
of the spiritual singer in gospel worship. 

Should unconverted men and women sing 
the spiritual songs of believers? 

Let every one sing, is called out by a singing 
leader. Sing what ? 

Jesus, I love thy charming name 

'Tis music to my ear, 
Fain would I sound it out so loud 

That earth and heaven might hear. 

Is it not mockery for unbelievers to sing that 
avowal of adoring, trusting love to Christ ? 
" Everybody sing." Sing what? 

Oh, how I love Jesus 
Because he first loved me. 

Ye young and thoughtless beings ! Ye worldly, 
trifling unbelievers, don't sing it. It is a false 
avowal. It is insulting to God. It is trifling with 
divine things. It is a sin. 

IV. CHOIRS AND THEIR ACCOMPANIMENTS. 

That a congregation should be led in its praise- 
service, that there may be accord and order in 
singing, is beyond question. " Praise is comely in 
his sight." But all worship should be done de- 
cently and in order. Who, then, or what person 



PUBLIC WORSHIP 73 

or persons shall be selected to accomplish this, to 
start and lead the singing ? 

In C. H. Spurgeon's Tabernacle, where many 
thousand persons were usually gathered on the 
Lord's Day, a member of the church, a known 
pious man with a good, though not superior voice, 
led the singing with a simple wave of the hymn 
book in his hands to mark the time. The hymns 
were given out by the great preacher, and of a 
general character in which all could conscientiously 
join, and usually familiar. From the two thousand 
worshipers in the body of the building, from nearly 
two thousand voices in the first great gallery, and 
again from nearly that number in the upper tier, 
rolled up a great volume of harmony. It was uplift- 
ing, grand, edifying. This was praise. In St. Paul's 
Cathedral, with nearly as many assembled, a num- 
ber of surpliced men and boys chanted various 
compositions with artistic effect. It was music. 
It was art. It was not praise. In some of our 
congregations, to a great extent, music not praise, 
art not worship, — to please the people, not to 
please God, — seem to be the whole object of 
singing. It is not wrong, indeed it is manifestly 
right, for a church or its officials to raise the public 
singing to the highest excellency of musical har- 
mony and effect, just as much as it is the duty of 
the church to have the highest attainable excel- 
lency in the speaking abilities of the preacher. 



74 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

Culture and piety in eloquence or in singing are 
not antagonistic, and musical art does not destroy 
spirit and sincerity. 

But more, the singer or singers appointed to 
sing alone or in groups, in solos, duets, or quar- 
tettes, before a silent, listening congregation, is ad- 
vanced to a high and holy function, far higher and 
more responsible than the one who joins in the 
general singing of the congregation. Like the 
minister praying before that silent audience he 
becomes the representative of the worshipers be- 
fore God. He voices their penitence, theirjoys and 
sorrows, their adoration and praise. He is in this 
the leader of the worship of God. It is, next to 
the minister, the highest, most sacred position a 
mortal can occupy. Has a church or its officers 
the right or authority to put forth an unsaved, unbe- 
lieving man or woman to such leadership of divine 
worship ? Has a church or its members a right to 
consent to such advancement of an individual 
unless they have evidence that a spiritual, truthful 
sincerity leads him who leads this worship ? The 
unconverted man who makes no pretensions to 
spirituality has no more business to lead in God's 
praise than he has to preach God's word. It is not 
worship in spirit, it is not worship in truth ; it is 
not worship at all. And yet it is a pretty general 
fact that the appointment or advancement to this 
sacred position of leaders of praise, is not because 



PUBLIC WORSHIP 75 

the man desires to preach or to pray, or praise God 
by singing, but because of his musical culture. 

It is not to please God but men. It is not for 
his glory, but to attract or amuse, to bring up the 
music to a level with that heard outside the church. 
Does the committee on music ever ask those whom 
they propose to engage as leaders in God's praises : 
"Will you in your singing be filled with the Spirit, 
sing unto the Lord with the Spirit, and with the 
understanding, — in spirit and in truth, — that when 
you chant, ' Have mercy on me, O Lord, create in 
me a clean heart/ or sing, 

Rock of ages, cleft for me, 
Let me hide myself in thee, 

your singing will be sincere, that it will be a personal 
as well as a public prayer? " He or she in most cases 
will answer, " No, I engage to do nothing of the 
kind. I propose to give you musical expression 
of the psalms and hymns with artistic rendition, 
nothing more." The writer has known avowed 
skeptics to be the advanced leaders of praise 
worship, has known the charming singing leader 
to leave his place during the sermon and return 
with the concluding prayer to move the audience 
by assumed artistic feeling — and do this regularly. 
Is this worship? Is it not as sinful in the church 
that consents to it as in the man who performs it ? 
We avouch solemnly, in the name of the Divine 



j6 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 






Master of assemblies, that none but professed be- 
lievers in the Lord Jesus should be appointed, 
advanced, or permitted to lead in solo, duet, quar- 
tette, the praise of God, and declare it is sinful 
and wrong for churches to do so. 

And now a few words as to the accompaniments 
to this highest form of worship. An organ as 
an accompaniment aids. As a principal (as organ 
solos) it mars. It should be subordinated to the 
living voice — spirit worship. In itself it is not wor- 
ship at all. And yet how many churches make the 
organ the main, the essential thing in divine praise. 
But what shall we say of violin solos and violin 
quintettes ? Are they introduced to praise and 
please God or to edify the people ? No, they are 
vain, indeed, a profane show. And what must be 
the state of mind of a preacher or deacons, or of a 
church that can appoint, approve, or consent to 
such a trifling mockery of divine worship? Oh, 
let the words of the Lord Jesus abide with and 
ring upon the hearts of preachers and churches : 
" But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true 
worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in 
truth : for the Father seeketh such to worship him." 
And let these words of the Lord be responded to 
in earnest decision in the words of the inspired 
apostle : " I will pray with the spirit and with the 
understanding also, and I will sing with the spirit 
and with the understanding also/' 






public worship yy 

The fact that chantings in responsive musical 
forms superseded spiritual prayer and praise, and 
also preaching of the gospel ; together with the fact 
that in the times of persecution singing might dis- 
close their secret places of worship, led ancient Bap- 
tists (to a great extent) to abandon this part of 
worship altogether. But it was restored with the 
establishment of religious freedom. It is now to be 
feared that it will be overdone. 

V. PUBLIC PRAYER. 

Worship is prayer as well as praise. In this 
Baptists are guided by the gospel testimony and by 
apostolic example. 

The Lord Jesus prayed. His life was marked 
by prayer. But never in any instance did he recite 
prayers or repeat forms of prayers. He has given 
two examples of prayers, one of the Pharisee and 
the other of a publican. In both the prayer was 
extempore ; and the accepted one was the voice 
of a contrite heart. 

In all the New Testament there is not found a 
copied prayer or a repeated prayer. Even what is 
termed the Lord's Prayer is never referred to, 
much less repeated by the apostles. Every prayer 
of the apostles is what we term extempore — is 
from the prompting of the soul under the influence 
of the Holy Spirit. 

Read or memorized or prescribed prayers are 



y8 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

anti-scriptural, and Baptists have ever condemned 
all such kind of worship. Public prayer should 
include confession, contrition, petitions for mercy, 
and blessing with thanksgiving. It should not be 
doctrinal, historical, fault-finding, or complimentary. 
Prayer should be of the heart — a solemn address 
to God, never to the audience. 

VI. PREACHING. 

This after worship is the great purpose of the 
assembling of the Lord's people. John the Bap- 
tist came preaching. The Lord Jesus preached 
the kingdom. He commissioned his disciples to 
preach the gospel. Christ Jesus declared this 
gospel of the kingdom should be preached to all 
nations for a witness, then shall the end come. 
Paul preached the gospel and declared that this 
preached gospel was the power of God unto salva- 
tion. He exhorted Timothy to preach the word 
in season and out of season. Ministers are called 
and set apart to preach, and each one should ever 
realize as did Paul, "Woe is me if I preach not the 
gospel " — nothing less, nothing more, nothing else. 

Preaching has ever characterized Baptist people. 
Rituals and pompous Roman masses or ritualistic 
forms have ever marked the apostasy. 

VII. THE LORD'S SUPPER 

This is the name given by inspiration to this 



PUBLIC WORSHIP 79 

memorial ordinance. Jesus gave thanks when 
he broke the bread, and because of the word 
for thanks in the Greek men have called it 
" eucharist. ,, 

There is symbolized in the action in the church, 
as showing forth the Lord's death, a unity with 
each other and with the Lord. This is communion. 
Men because of this, have called the ordinance of 
the Lord's Supper " Holy Communion.' 1 The 
whole design of the Lord's Supper is to show forth 
his sacrificial death as an accomplished fact, "he 
offered himself," "he died once," he finished his 
sacrificial work on the cross. This is proclaimed in 
silent but effective significance in the broken 
bread and the poured out wine. Our participa- 
tion with him in his sacrificial work is symbolized 
in eating the bread and drinking the wine. " Show 
the Lord's death till he come." And show forth 
your interest in that death by your interest in him. 

Men have changed this into a " Holy Mass," "an 
unbloody sacrifice " — a re-offering of the body of 
Christ. Baptists hold that the Supper is a memorial 
and declarative act or ordinance, conveying no 
special grace, having no magic charm, and with no 
sacrificial character. It is not a sacrament (an 
unscriptural term), but an ordinance instituted by 
the Lord Jesus. 

There was no ritual associated with its institu- 
tion, there is no reference to a ritual or prescribed 



8o 



BAPTIST WAYMARKS 



form in Paul's instructions concerning its ministra- 
tion. Baptists have consequently no ritual con- 
nected with it. It is the Lord's Supper, — bread 
broken and eaten,— no more and no less than a 
memorial rite. 






CHAPTER XII 

OF CHURCH DISCIPLINE 

"TTAVING spoken of the gathering together of 
a particular gospel church, and its officers, 
and the rules whereby we are to be guided in 
choosing and ordaining them, and of the admis- 
sion of members, etc., it is meet to give a short 
view of a church's duties and authority in respect 
to censures upon offenders. 

OF ADMONITION. 

" I. Admonition should be a holy, tender, and 
wise endeavor to convince a brother that he has 
offended in matter of fact, or else is fallen into a 
way, wherein to continue is like to be prejudicial to 
the party himself, or to others ; where the matter, 
whatever it be, and the sinfulness thereof, with the 
aggravating circumstances attending it, is to be 
charged on his conscience, in the sight of God, 
with due application of the word of God, which 
concerns his condition, thereby leading him to his 
duty and true reformation. 

" 2. Admonition is private by one or more of the 
brethren, or more public by the whole church. 

f 81 



82 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

(i) When one brother trespasses against another, 
the offended brother is not to divulge the offense, 
but to go in a gospel way to the offender and to 
use his endeavor to reclaim his brother ; and if he 
repents the offended brother ought to forgive him. 
But if the offending brother will not hear, then the 
offended brother ought to take two or three other 
brethren, and they such as may be the most likely 
to gain upon the offender ; but if this admonition 
also takes no effect, it is to be brought before the 
church. (2) The church, when matters come thus 
before it, shall admonish and endeavor to reclaim 
the offender in the spirit of meekness, and if the 
brother that offended continues obstinate and im- 
penitent the church is directed to exclude him. 
(3) Whence it follows, that every church-member 
has somewhat to do in his place. (4) In case of 
private offenses it is preposterous to publish them 
or acquaint the church or elders thereof therewith 
before the two lower degrees of admonition are 
duly accomplished and the offender has neglected 
to hear. (5) That when matters are thus regularly 
brought to the church then the private proceedings 
may cease. (6) That when private offenses are 
brought to the church without such proper private 
procedure, that the church may and ought to refuse 
it as not coming according to the gospel rule afore- 
said. (7) But when those things that begin in 
private are thus regularly brought into the church 



OF CHURCH DISCIPLINE 83 

they must be received and adjudged according to 
the same rule. So that it may and doth oftentimes 
fall out, that those things that begin with a private 
admonition do end in public excommunication 

OF SUSPENSION. 

" 1. A suspension may be when the church is in- 
formed that a member has acted amiss, either in 
matters of faith or practice, and not having satis- 
factory proof whether the information is true or 
false, and the case requiring time to inquire therein, 
it is expedient to suspend such a person from com- 
munion at the Lord's table until the elders of the 
church can make a suitable inquiry, as might be 
signified by the law in the case of leprosy. 

" 2. Suspension is rather to be looked upon to be 
when a church debars a member from communion 
for some irregularity that he may be guilty of, which 
yet does not amount so high as to be ripe for the 
great sentence of excommunication, but that the 
person for such irregularity ought to be debarred of 
the privilege of special communion and exercise of 
office in order to his humiliation. Such is not to 
be accounted as an enemy, but to be exhorted as a 
brother in union, though not in communion ; but 
if such an one remain impenitent and incorrigible, 
the church, after due waiting for his reformation, is 
to proceed to excommunication, for that would be 
not hearing the church in the highest degree. 



84 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

EXCOMMUNICATION. 

" Excommunication is a judicial act or censure of 
the church upon an offender by the authority of 
Jesus Christ, and by his direction delivered to his 
church by himself or his apostles in the New Testa- 
ment, which a gospel church ought to put into 
practice, when matters of fact require, according 
to the gospel rule ; as first, when a member, after 
all due admonition, continues to be obstinate and 
will hear no reproof. Secondly, when a member 
has committed a gross sin, which is directly against 
the moral law, and being notorious and scandalous, 
and proved beyond dispute, then a church is imme- 
diately to proceed unto censure, notwithstanding 
any present signs of conviction or remorse, for the 
necessary vindication of the glory of God, the vin- 
dication of the church also, and its holy profes- 
sion ; and to manifest its just indignation and 
abhorrence against such wickedness. Thirdly, 
when a member is found erroneous, defective, or 
heretical in some fundamental point, or to swerve 
from the right faith in the principles of the Chris- 
tian religion. 

"The manner of proceeding unto this great and 
awful instituted ordinance is, the church being 
gathered together, the offender also having notice 
to come and make his answer and defense (if he 
comes not he aggravates his offense by despising 



OF CHURCH DISCIPLINE 85 

the authority of Christ in his church), the body of 
the church is to have knowledge of the offender's 
crime fully, and the full proof thereof as of plain 
matter of fact ; and after mature, deliberate con- 
sideration, and consulting the rules of direction 
given in the word of God, whether the offender be 
present or absent, the minister or elder puts the 
question to the whole church, Whether they judge 
the person guilty of such crime now proven upon 
him, is worthy of the censure of the church for the 
same ? to which the members in general give their 
judgment ; which, if it be in the affirmative, then 
the judgment of the members in general being had, 
or the majority of them, the pastor, minister, or 
elder sums up the sentence of the church, opens 
the nature of the crime with the suitableness of the 
censure, according to gospel rule, and having thus 
proceeded, a proper time is fixed to put the sen- 
tence in execution, at which time the pastor, min- 
ister, or elder of the church, as his place and duty 
requires, is to lay open the heinousness of such sin, 
with all the aggravating circumstances thereof, 
showing what an abominable scandal such an 
offender is become to religion, what dishonor it is 
to God, etc., applying the particular places in Scrip- 
ture that are proper to the case, in order to charge 
the offense home upon the conscience of the 
offender, if present, that others also may fear, 
showing also the awful nature of this great censure, 



86 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

and the main end thereof, for the salvation and not 
the destruction of the soul, and with much solem- 
nity in the whole society calling upon God for his 
gracious presence and his blessing upon his sacred 
ordinance, that the great end thereof may be ob- 
tained, still expressing the deep sense the church 
has of the fall of this brother, with the great 
humiliation of the church, and the great sorrow 
for and detestation of the sin committed. The 
said pastor, minister, or elder, in the name of the 
Lord Jesus Christ, in the presence of the congrega- 
tion, and by and with the consent and according to 
the judicial sentence of the church, cuts off and 
excludes such an offender by name from the union 
and communion of the church because of his 
offense ; so that such a person is not thenceforth to 
be looked upon, deemed, or accounted as a brother 
or member of such church, until God shall restore 
him again by repentance. 

" Which exclusion carries in it the full sense of 
our Lord's words. "Let him be unto thee as an 
heathen man, as a publican" ; or of the apostle, to 
deliver such an one to Satan ; which is an authori- 
tative putting of such a person out of the com- 
munion of the church, the kingdom of heaven into 
the world, the kingdom of Satan, the prince of the 
power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the 
children of disobedience, in order to his being hum- 
bled and broken under the sight and sense of his 



OF CHURCH DISCIPLINE 87 

sins, which is meant by the destruction of the flesh, 
and to the end that the spirit may be saved in the 
day of the Lord. 

" Among the many disorders which church-mem- 
bers may be guilty of, and for the obstinate con- 
tinuance therein, a church may and ought to use 
the power that Christ hath given to exclude from her 
communion, that is one which is when a member 
doth seclude himself, and that not in any regular 
way but contrary to all rule and order ; for when a 
church-member, by reason of some offense he hath 
taken at the church or some of the members 
thereof, and hath not done his duty according to 
the rule of the word, or else is dying away in relig- 
ion by one means or another, as by the love of 
the world, change of condition in marriage, or not 
having his expected preferment in the church, or 
the like, does, as it were, excommunicate himself, 
the church, according to its duty, ought to use its 
endeavors to reclaim such ; which endeavors, if 
they prove fruitless and the party obstinate, the 
church ought not to acquiesce in his irregular de- 
parture from them, as if all their bonds of relation 
and duty were over and no more was to be done, 
seeing the party has usurped the power of the keys 
to himself; the church, therefore, must maintain 
the power that Christ hath committed unto it, 
though it cannot hinder the obstinate and unruly 
passions of such an one if God leaves him to it. He 



88 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

will run away from the church, rending himself 
schematically off, breaking through all order and 
covenant obligations in opposition to brotherly 
endeavors to hinder him and to stay him in his 
place ; the church is to proceed judicially to turn 
the key upon such a sinful, disorderly departure, 
and publicly declare that such an one by name has 
been guilty of such a thing, naming his disorders, 
he is no longer in their communion nor under 
their watch and care, etc., and such a person is not 
to return to his communion until he has given satis- 
faction to the church. Such a separation or de- 
parture is very sinful for these and like reasons : 
(i) Because the church is an organization privileged 
with laws and rules for admittance and demittance, 
which ought to be observed. (2) Such a departure 
is rude and indecent, therefore dishonorable. (3) 
Because, if members may take this liberty, all the 
officers of the church, ministers, ruling elders, and 
deacons, may take the same liberty, which would 
soon unchurch any church, or at least be destructive 
to its beauty, comfort, and edification. (4) All 
members do covenant the contrary, and therefore 
it is a breach of the covenant, which is a black 
character. (5) It destroys totally the relation be- 
tween elders and people, which God hath ordained. 
(6) It is a usurping of the keys, or rather a stealing 
of them. (7) It is schism ; if there is such a thing 
in the world, it is of particular churches, (8) It is 



OF CHURCH DISCIPLINE 89 

high contempt of Christ in the government of his 
church. (9) It is to break the staff of beauty 
(covenant) and of bands and brotherhood too. It 
argues either some great undiscovered guilt lying 
on the party, or some by-ends in his first seeking ad- 
mission into such a church. All which put together 
it declares the great unity of the congregational 
gospel church and the sinfulness of such disorderly 
persons in breaking off without a just cause ; but 
if any church becomes heretical in principles, or 
idolatrous in worship, or immoral in life, it is law- 
ful for persons, after they have discharged their 
conscience and duty in reproving and bearing wit- 
ness against such gross defections, to depart.' ' 

COMMENTS. 

Baptists follow in strict and literal observance 
the rule of the Lord Jesus in regard to the deal- 
ings and discipline of offenders. But admonition, 
which is implied in the expression " If he will 
not hear the church," etc., is usually done by the 
pastor or some brother or brethren. 

" Brethren," wrote Paul to the Galatians, " if 
a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spir- 
itual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness ; 
considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted" 
(Gal. 6:1). 

This, of course, induces admonition, prayer, en- 
treaty. It is the duty of every member of the 



90 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

church to feel pity for the erring ones, to exercise 
patience toward them. Church action should be 
avoided unless when private efforts fail. 

Suspension is sometimes imposed by a church ; 
not generally, however. But so soon as the church 
takes the matter of misdemeanor in hand the mem- 
ber charged is virtually suspended and is so con- 
sidered. But now comes the invariable rule, 
never to be evaded. " Moreover if thy brother 
shall trespass against thee" (a personal offense), 
"go and tell him his fault between thee and him 
alone : if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy 
brother" (Matt. 18 : 15). This is the imperative 
law. It is sinful to evade it, and the church that 
permits its violation brings on itself almost endless 
trouble. It is a personal (not merely private) 
offense and should be personally adjusted. 

Now comes the second step. One or two men, 
wise ones, should go to the offender, and in faith- 
fulness and tenderness try to convince him of his 
wrong-doing and restore him to fellowship. If this 
is unavailing — but not till every proper method of 
conciliation and reconciliation has failed — the mat- 
ter is to be brought before "the church." It is 
the church which is to consider the matter. It is 
the church which is to decide. To turn this sol- 
emn duty over to the " Board of deacons " is a 
violation of the Lord's inspired rule. It is wrong, 
and no excuse of expedience can make it right. 



OF CHURCH DISCIPLINE 91 

A general offense, that is, an offense against 
morals or the advocacy of false doctrine, should be 
taken up by the church at once. Mere prelimi- 
nary admonitions and endeavors to convince and 
restore the offender may or may not be necessary. 
But it is a general and not a personal matter, and 
a church should take prompt action in regard to it. 

In all such cases the action of the church is final. 
There is no court of appeal on earth. " Let him 
(who is excluded) be to thee as an heathen man, 
as a publican." 



CHAPTER XIII 

AS TO DEPOSING A BAPTIST MINISTER 

T is agreed among us, and indeed among all 
Baptists, that each congregation or church is 
distinct from every other church, and that no super- 
vision or dictation by any presbytery, council, or 
Association can be admitted in regard to the action 
of a gospel church in any matter of discipline. 

1. It is established among Baptists that as each 
church has the inherent right to judge of the fitness 
or unfitness for her fellowship, and has the inherent 
scriptural right to admit into or exclude from her 
membership those whom she deems worthy or 
unworthy, so she has the inherent scriptural right 
to ordain to the ministry or exclude from it any 
one holding membership in her body whose call- 
ing, character, and gifts she considers fit for that 
office or justify his exclusion from it. 

2. The comity of churches of the same faith and 
practice — their associational harmony, order, and 
co-operation — so essential to the advance of Christ's 
kingdom, requires (and the requirement has always 
been admitted) that a council from neighboring 
churches or a presbytery of preachers be called to 

92 






AS TO DEPOSING A BAPTIST MINISTER 93 

advise the church as to the fitness or unfitness in 
doctrine and character of the person whom that 
church proposes to set apart to the work of the 
ministry. No church may fall back on her inherent 
right to do this without counsel or aid from other 
churches. She may form a presbytery within her- 
self and ordain a man in defiance of churches or 
ministry. She may disregard the decision of a 
council when called by her. But in such cases she 
may expect that her action will not be recognized 
by other churches and that ministerial courtesy 
will not be extended to him whom she has thus 
ordained without consultation. She in fact places 
herself by this course outside the pale of denomi- 
national co-operation and fellowship, and, unless 
in some very exceptional instances, her acts merit 
associational disapproval. 

3. A like comity of churches — their harmony, 
order, and co-operation — requires that a council 
from neighboring churches or a presbytery of 
preachers be convened by a church before she 
vindicates the pastor's character from alleged im- 
morality or heresy or deposes him from the min- 
istry. Such a council or presbytery was convened 
and its advice taken before he was set apart. 
Churches, if they act considerately, vote to accept 
the advice or decision of the council. The ordina- 
tion or setting apart is finally proceeded with. 
Churches, if consistent, vote to accept the advice 



94 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

or decision of the council and then the deposi- 
tion or exclusion of the accused takes place. The 
churches and ministry were represented in or- 
daining him. They should be represented in 
the deposition. The general recognition of the 
man as a minister by the denomination at large is 
based upon the fact that the denomination at large 
was represented in setting him apart to the min- 
istry. It was for the churches generally and not 
for the one church exclusively that he was ordained. 
The churches have an interest, more or less, a 
common stock in an ordained Baptist minister, 
and, as ordaining him does not end with that one 
church of his membership, neither does deposing 
him stop with that church. Other churches must 
feel it. The man's relation to the denomination is 
changed by ordination, also by deposition. Xo 
church, therefore, should expel from her member- 
ship or depose from the ministry an ordained 
minister without first calling a council from churches 
or a presbytery of ministers to aid by their advice 
and decision. 

4. If a church, falling back on her inherent 
ricrht to act for herself without consulting other 
churches in her vicinity or Association, depose or 
expel an ordained minister, he has a clear right to 
apply to a neighboring Baptist church and ask it 
to right the wrong done him bv calling a council 
from associated churches, including the one which 






AS TO DEPOSING A BAPTIST MINISTER 9$ 

expelled or deposed him, and, if that council vin- 
dicates and sustains him and condemns the action 
of the excluding church, then the church which 
called the council may rightfully receive him into 
membership and recognize him as a minister in 
good standing in the denomination. The act of 
one church, without counsel or advice, is not to 
control every other church. The inherent right 
of one to expel whom she thinks unfit proves the 
inherent right of any other church to receive whom 
she thinks fit. In regard to the ministry, neither 
should be done without the counsel of the other 
churches. 

6. It is the duty of a church in which an or- 
dained minister, whether pastor or otherwise, holds 
membership, in regard to whom there are specific 
reports respecting his moral character, with cred- 
ible evidence of being true, to call a council or 
presbytery and lay the facts and evidence before it 
and then follow its advice or decision. 

7. It is the duty of ministers, when there are 
such reports affecting the moral character of a min- 
ister in their vicinity, with credible evidence of 
being true, to consult with each other and infor- 
mally request the church where such minister holds 
membership to call a council to investigate the 
matter, so that the scandal may be removed, 
either by his vindication or his exclusion from the 
ministry, and, if the church will not heed such re- 



g6 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

quests, the ministry have the right to meet as a 
presbytery, investigate the reports or facts, and give 
the results to the churches and the world. Minis- 
ters have no right to remain silent while the cause 
of Christ is being scandalized by the delinquencies 
of an immoral man who may be sheltered by a 
church under his influence, or, by indifference or 
weakness, sustained in his wrong-doing. 

No man lives to himself. No church lives to 
herself. No minister lives to himself. It is our duty 
to sustain each other's character and standing 
firmly and affectionately. And it is equally our 
duty to withdraw from him whose life is a scandal. 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE INDEPENDENCE OF A CHURCH 

DISCUSSIONS in regard to the independence 
of every Baptist church and of the comity 
or interdependence of churches shown in the con- 
stitution of a church, in the ordination of a minis- 
ter, and the formation of an Association of churches, 
have arisen and still continue. 

As before said, a church, when organized and 
officered according to the gospel example and 
precept, is complete, distinct, and independent of 
every other organization on earth. 

The church at Corinth was complete in itself. 
It was addressed as the supreme Corinthian court 
(if such an expression may be admitted). In the 
party divisions that arose — some for Paul, some for 
Cephas — no hint of any court of appeal or of the 
interference of other churches is found. The same 
is true of the offender ; they were to act as the high- 
est earthly tribunal — from whose decision there was 
no appeal. " When ye are gathered together to 
deliver such an one (the incestuous man) unto 
Satan," that is, to expel him, turn him over to the 
society or kingdom to which he belongs. 

G 97 



98 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

Never is it heard of the neighboring church of 
Cenchrea, or any others having anything to do with 
this general offense or any appeal. When the church 
forgave the offender Paul acknowledged, as seen in 
these words, "To whom ye forgive anything I also 
forgive." The seven churches of Asia are recognized 
as distinct and independent. The acts of each 
were confined to itself. " Suffering that woman 
Jezebel to teach" was the guilt of the church in 
Thyatira ; concerning this no other church inter- 
fered and for it no other church was blamed. 

Baptists, all along the path of their history stained 
with their witnessing blood, have shown their ad- 
herence to this autonomy and independence of a 
gospel church. Opposed in its very nature to the 
kingdom of this world it has been oppressed and, 
so far as could be, has been crushed by priests and 
princes. 



CHAPTER XV 

SOVEREIGNTY OF CHURCH OR ASSOCIATION 

r PHE word sovereignty means, or at least im- 
plies, authority or supreme rule. It further 
implies lawmaking power. The sovereign is in re- 
ality the fountain of law. Sovereignty in a man is 
autocracy ; that is to say, the sovereign is the per- 
sonal lawmaker, and when sovereignty belongs to 
God, "he is Lord of all." In the matter of faith 
and practice, he is the Sovereign, and no one else 
is in any way whatever. 

The Lord Jesus is Sovereign of the churches. 
He gave their laws, their ordinances, their govern- 
ment, "he gave some apostles, some teachers," 
and for the perfecting of the saints. The apostles 
were not sovereign — not lawmakers : " Who then 
is Paul, and who then is Apollos, but ministers by 
whom ye believed, as the Lord gave to every man ? " 
Christ Jesus enjoined upon the Twelve to teach, 
"Whatsoever I have commanded you." He assured 
them that the Holy Spirit should "bring all things to 
your remembrance whatsoever I have commanded 
you." Their work was ministerial, or executive, 
not sovereign. There can be no sovereign but 

99 

LofC. 



IOO BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

Christ Jesus. A gospel church is not sovereign. 
It is to do what the Lord Jesus commanded. It 
is to carry out his will. Christ is the Lawmaker, the 
churches are the executives of his laws. 

The president of these United States is an ex- 
ecutive, not sovereign. He can make no laws. 
He is the chief executive of the laws which exist, 
or are enforced. The Congress is not sovereign, it 
is representative. It is supposed to carry out the 
will of the people whom it represents. Nor is the 
Supreme Court sovereign. It is to decide as to 
the constitutionality of the laws, but enacts none 
and can enforce none. 

The individual is sovereign, with constitutional 
limits ; the people are sovereign, as they are the 
real lawmakers, and hence the maxim, "The will of 
the people is the supreme law." 

But the will of the Lord Jesus (not the will of 
the people or council) is the supreme law of his 
churches. They can enact no laws ; to do so, or to 
attempt to do so, is not only presumptuous, but 
treasonable too. 

The following is from Rev. John M. Peck, next 
to Benedict, one of the best informed men in our 
denomination : l 

" Has a church of Jesus Christ any right to in- 
terfere with the discipline of any other church ? 

1 Published in M Repository " in 1852, after having been read 
on approval by the Illinois Ministers' Conference. 



SOVEREIGNTY OF CHURCH OR ASSOCIATION IOI 

"To understand this question in its legitimate 
bearing and give an intelligible answer, we must 
explain the terms employed ; and in their defini- 
tion we shall be guided by Baptist views of New 
Testament institutions. 

"The term ' church' means a congregation of 
believers — the disciples of Christ acting as a polity 
' called to be saints ' — those who have been bap- 
tized, and have voluntarily united in covenant rela- 
tion as a community to worship God and obey the 
laws of Christ. 

"The church in Jerusalem, composed of about 
one hundred and twenty persons (Acts I : 15), and 
at a subsequent period of several thousand, was 
such a community. Such also were the Christian 
communities in Rome, Corinth, Ephesus, Antioch, 
Philippi, and the churches in Galatia, in Macedo- 
nia, and in Asia Minor. These were distinct and 
separate congregations, the members of each as- 
sembling every Lord's Day, and at other seasons, 
for the worship of God, and to manage their affairs 
as separate communities. 

" In such communities the term ' discipline ' in- 
cludes all that relates to the supervision of mem- 
bers over each other. It includes the reception of 
members to fellowship in the community, Chris- 
tian watchfulness over the morals and doctrine of 
each other ; admonishing and reclaiming offenders, 
and excluding unworthy members. 



: : : za?t:st : Mr 

The : t5 :: ::::.:: are :: be fiurc. re: in 
rreeds. :hrrts : :" ::.::. :a:t:r.s. :: e::ie5.ait;:al ce- 
::s: : ::s rerarae a ?_£ z recede:; is. ::: ir the : 
:: vitas rrstratta: rs a: .a exartiAei ::the Xt'-v Tes- 
tarteri These r re recti ard exartthes pre rtt irr- 
titrs dra'.vr frarr abstract crhrcicdes bat 
xrirgs as ".vctdri readily arte resi the rrir.ds 
Doosdences of the d -Is: iples ::" iTirist, who have 
=tt died rrayerrallv the - :rd ::" the Lira aad are 
willing to perfonii whatever he directs* 

"Not even- mistake or misapprehension of par- 
ticular truths and precepts, or improper temper, 
T-P-ge. :r :::.::.:: exhibited pre t: sab;ect the 
delinquent to the discipline of the church, else no 
merrier v.-rtdd be exert c : 5 . :h : :tly =i pre :: e ~ 
direct, and flagrant derelictions of Christian char- 
a:ter : such a_s terd t: er darker the s.aivati:r : :" 
the delinquent and bring reproach on the church 
as the body of Christ, are the proper and scrip- 
tural grounds of censure and exclusion. Least 
of all should the wicked practice of evil sur- 
misings and uncharitable suspicions be the occa- 
sion of church censure. Certainly no surmising 
of misconduct or of erroneous doctrines can right- 
fully be made the ground of church discipline. 
All such surmising is wicked in itself and con- 
demned in the Scriptures as a grievous offense (i 
Tirr. c : a 

"The term authority* in the question cannot 



SOVEREIGNTY OF CHURCH OR ASSOCIATION IO3 

mean any form of arbitrary power. It cannot in- 
clude human legislation in or out of the church, 
for the servant has no power to usurp the author- 
ity of the master and make laws for the govern- 
ment of his fellow-servants. Its meaning is exclu- 
sive, and must be determined by scriptural precept 
or example drawn from the various cases of disci- 
pline mentioned in the New Testament. The most 
dangerous power is that derived by implication, 
and not from precept or example. 

" The question now assumes this form : Has the 
New Testament established or even recognized any 
authority in the hands of any man, or company of 
men, to sit in judgment on the proceedings of any 
church of Jesus Christ? Such power, if it does 
exist, necessarily includes several particulars, as 
power to look into the conduct of a church, ex- 
amine its records, institute an ecclesiastical court, 
prescribe the form of trial, summon and examine 
winesses, punish those who refuse to testify, adju- 
dicate on the church, decide the case, and if ad- 
judged guilty execute the penalty. All these par- 
ticulars must be included in the supposed author- 
ity, or the procedure would be farcical. 

" All Baptists maintain that each church, in its 
own capacity, is a judicial body, and capable of 
conducting a trial, and executing the penalty en- 
joined in the New Testament on incorrigible 
offenders. If there is any higher court to sit in 






I04 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

judgment on the proceedings of the church, sup- 
posed to be delinquent, it must have all the power 
in its capacity, belonging to a superior court in 
reversing the decision, and granting redress to the 
injured party. If such provision has been made 
by the Head of the church, it can be shown from 
precept or example in the New Testament. The 
common plea urged to justify the interference of 
one church with the affairs of another is necessity. 
The question is asked, 4 What shall be done when 
a church is defective in discipline, holds disorderly 
members in fellowship, or excludes those who do 
not deserve it ? ' We answer by proposing other 
questions involved in the supposition. Who is to 
judge in such a case? Where is the court invested 
with power from the New Testament to try the 
case ? It is enough for our purpose to state that 
the Head of the church has made no such provision 
for interference. 

" There were cases in the primitive churches 
that called for such interferences, if it is ever proper 
for one church to interfere with the discipline of 
another. The condition of the church at Corinth, 
as developed in the first Epistle of Paul to that 
community, is in point. That church was in a most 
disorderly state, as the following particulars will 
show : 

" I. The members were divided into parties, and 
claimed to be the disciples of those apostles and 



SOVEREIGNTY OF CHURCH OR ASSOCIATION I OS 

ministers who had baptized and taught them. One 
party claimed to be the disciples of Paul ; another 
class were the followers of Apollos ; another party 
claimed Peter as their guide ; and a fourth party 
recognized Christ as their leader (i Cor. i : 12). 

" 2. A member who was a member of influence, 
and supposed by commentators to have been a 
preacher or teacher, was guilty of fornication and 
incest — a crime the heathen condemned, and they 
kept him in the church until Paul wrote the severe 
reproof in this Epistle. 

" 3. Instead of settling pecuniary difficulties by 
reference to the arbitration of brethren in the 
church, they prosecuted each other before heathen 
magistrates (chap. 3). 

"4. Disorderly connections and separations in 
the marriage relation are mentioned in chap. 7. 

" 5. Some of the members commingled with 
idolaters in the heathen temples, and partook of 
things offered to the idols, thus giving countenance 
to idolatrous worship (chap. 8). 

" 6. They neglected the duty of sustaining those 
persons who had been set apart, and were devoted to 
the ministry of the gospel, so as to compel them to 
perform this warfare at their own charge (chap. 9). 

" 7. The personal appearance and behavior of 
the women in their public assemblies were of such 
a character as to bring reproach on Christianity 
(chap. 11). 



106 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

" 8. Instead of a proper observance of the Lord's 
Supper by the church, the members met in parties 
at each other's home, and made a kind of riotous 
festival, not discerning the Lord's body {ibid.). 

"9. Instead of employing the diversified gifts 
bestowed on the church for mutual edification, 
they exalted some and despised others (chap. 1 2). 

" 10. They were disorderly in their public as- 
semblies, and prayed and taught in " unknown 
tongues" out of vain glory (chap. 14). 

" Rarely can a religious community now be found 
as delinquent and disorderly as this church had 
become in about four years after its establishment 
under the ministry of the Apostle Paul (Acts 1 8). 

"A cause of these flagrant derelictions may be 
found in the fact that Corinth was a very corrupt 
city, and that a much larger number of this church 
had been converted from heathenism, and while in 
that state had been more grossly wicked than those 
of other churches (1 Cor. 6:9, 11). 

"If any case called for the interference of other 
churches this was the one. Had it been the mind 
of the Lord that such ecclesiastical supervision 
should exist the Holy Spirit would have given in- 
structions to that effect. No other church moved 
in the business, yet there was intercourse and inter- 
communion between this and neighboring churches. 
The mode of producing a reformation in this delin- 
quent church was the following : Paul, the apostle 



SOVEREIGNTY OF CHURCH OR ASSOCIATION IO7 

to the Gentiles, directed thereunto by the Holy 
Spirit, wrote a letter, enumerating each of the 
delinquencies, and in the language of reproof, yet 
of courtesy, kindness, and faithfulness, urged the 
members to reform. This letter had the desired 
effect, a revival of pure religion was the result, and 
an entire change of conduct followed. 

" We learn this fact from the second Epistle. The 
seventh chapter of that Epistle describes their 
'sorrow after a godly sort/ and their 'reformation 
unto life.' The writings of Paul and other inspired 
apostles, enforced by the ministers of Christ, are 
the antidote to all such disorders. In this case we 
have no intimation of a presbytery, a synod, a 
quarterly, annual, or general conference, a conven- 
tion of 'bishops and laity/ and 'ecumenical coun- 
cil/ or even an 'association/ or a 'council' of 
churches called for the purpose. All these bodies, 
when engaged in making laws to regulate the 
affairs of the kingdom of heaven, or to sit in judg- 
ment on the acts of the churches of Jesus Christ, 
are human contrivances to remedy a supposed evil 
for which Infinite Wisdom, at a time when such 
institutions were needful, if ever, made no provision. 

"The subject will receive further elucidation by 
considering the nature of church fellowship. Per- 
sonal acquaintance is the starting-point in church 
fellowship and discipline. It has been arranged by 
Infinite Wisdom that the members of each particu- 



IOS BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

lar church shall have opportunity of personal ac- 
quaintance with each other, and know each other's 
feelings, desires, and conduct. Hence all Christian 
churches, formed after the apostolic model, are local 
societies, meeting together in one place, and wor- 
shiping God in company. The New Testament 
knows nothing about those ecclesiastical hierarchies 
that extend over a country or a nation. There is a 
very obvious line of distinction made between the 
churches mentioned in the New Testament as local 
bodies. Each was a separate community, and in dis- 
cipline wholly independent of the rest. By this 
arrangement personal intercourse among the mem- 
bers belonging to the same community was pro- 
vided Discipline extended no further than the 
members who had entered into covenant with each 
other. All delinquent members were tried by 
their brethren, with whom the}' were in special 
covenant relation. They would know all the cir- 
cumstances, and make allowances for mistakes and 
defects in knowledge. Such were the churches 
and such the discipline as testified by Mosheim, 
Jones, Xeander, and other historians. 

"The members were equal in rights and privi- 
leges. Pastors, evangelists, and deacons were 
chosen by the brotherhood, from their own mem- 
bers by lifting up the hand. 1 Xo factitious impor- 

1 The term ordain, properly means to appoint, and in this in- 
stance expresses the act of the churches, under the instruction or 



SOVEREIGNTY OF CHURCH OR ASSOCIATION IO9 

tance was attached to these offices. The persons 
thus appointed were still subject to the discipline 
of the church to which they belonged, and the only 
inspired direction to the churches was, not to receive 
an accusation against an elder except by the testi- 
mony of two or three witnesses. There does not 
appear to be the least intimation in the New Testa- 
ment, either expressed or implied, that any one 
or more churches should exercise authority over 
another church, or its members. We regard all 
such interference as usurpation, and highly danger- 
ous to the welfare of the churches. 

" But the inquiry is sometimes made, what shall 
be done with the delinquent churches who are 
united in the same Association ? Is there no scrip- 
tural authority for discipline in such cases ? 

"An association of churches is not a divine in- 



guidance of the apostles. Dr. Adam Clarke inquires ("Com- 
mentary and Critical Notes," in loco) : " What is the meaning of 
the word cheirotoneesantes, which we translate ordained? The 
word ordain we use in an ecclesiastical sense, and signify by it the 
appointment of a person to an office in the church, by the imposi- 
tion of the hands of those who are rulers in that church. But 
cheirotonia signifies holding up, or stretching out the hand, as ap- 
proving of the choice of any person to a particular work." Doctor 
Clarke then quotes Zonaras, a Greek author, in proof that the 
word expressed the mode of election anciently by holding up the 
hand. Mr. Harrington is quoted by Doddridge, who renders the 
words, " ordained them elders by the votes of the people." 

Doctor Gill says : "The apostles directed the churches to look 
out from among themselves, as in the case of deacons, an inferior 
office, who by joint suffrages declared their choice of them, by 
stretching out, or lifting up their hands, as the word cheirotonee- 
santes here signifies, and not the imposition of hands." 



110 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

stitution, and therefore has no ecclesiastical power 
whatever. It is a human device, the same as a 
Bible society, a Sunday-school, or a missionary so- 
ciety ; lawful and proper for legitimate objects, 
such as would be proper for individual Christians 
to do in religions affairs, but wholly unlawful when 
it assumes church authority, and to sit in judgment 
on the discipline of churches. If the authority to 
govern churches did not exist originally, any com- 
pact entered into by men cannot create it. 
Churches, when formed after the scriptural pattern, 
are institutions of Christy not voluntary societies 
which men may originate for lawful purposes, and 
therefore possess no power to delegate their authority 
to other bodies. All that pertains to church discipline 
originated from the Head, through his inspired 
records, and those who are governed by the laws of 
Christ's kingdom have no authority to transfer the 
responsibility imposed on the brotherhood to any 
other body. There can be no such thing as repre- 
sentation, in the proper sense of the term, in any 
organization of churches without the subversion of 
the theory of church government as taught in the 
New Testament and held by Baptists. Representa- 
tion carries with it the idea of legislation, and Bap- 
tists have always disclaimed all human legislation 
in the kingdom of Christ. ' The Lord is our law- 
giver ' (Isa. 33 : 22). 

"All the power possessed in discipline in every 



SOVEREIGNTY OF CHURCH OR ASSOCIATION III 

church is judicial, and that exclusively by single 
churches over their own members. As people are 
very often led astray by the misuse of words, it is 
suggested that the scriptural term, ' messengers of 
the churches' (2 Cor. 8 : 23), be used to express 
the relation of those brethren, who are sent on 
errands to Associations, or any other temporary and 
prudential organization. 

"Is the inquiry made, 'What shall be done by 
an Association of churches, in case a church be- 
comes immoral or heretical ? ' 

"The first step is to rid our minds of some no- 
tions that are fallacious, as that the same relation 
exists between churches in an Association as be- 
tween members in the same church, and that Asso- 
ciations have anything to do in church government 
and discipline. Next, we should regard an Asso- 
ciation in the same light as a missionary society, a 
Bible society, a ministerial conference, or any other 
organization for philanthropic purposes merely. 

"If a church in the vicinity does not think it to 
be expedient to join the Association, it ought not 
to impair fellowship. The fellowship, inter-com- 
munion, and intercourse between churches is not a 
matter of human, but of divine arrangement ; and 
all Christian churches that are organized after the 
divine pattern, and follow the footsteps of the Cap- 
tain of our salvation, are required to be in fellow- 
ship with each other, but not to interfere with the 



I I 2 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

rights of each, in executing the laws of the King. 
If a church already connected with an Association 
chooses to discontinue that particular connection 
at any time, it involves no breach of union. 

" An Association of churches is analogous to 
the union of several families, from one parental 
stock, living in the same vicinage, and accustomed 
to meet annually in a social form at each other's 
houses. Each family is entirely independent in its 
domestic arrangements, and one never thinks of 
sitting in judgment on the discipline of the other. 
They associate because they are related, have 
affinity in language and feelings, and entertain 
mutual sympathy in each other's welfare. Sup- 
pose one of these families becomes dissolute, keeps 
a disorderly house, and commits unlawful acts. Is 
there any authority given for the other families to 
organize a court and sit in judgment on the case? 
Could the social party, at their annual meeting, act 
in the way of family discipline and decree punish- 
ment ? What then can be done? The facts are 
supposed to be notorious. No special testimony 
is necessary to prove the defection. The other 
families, as a matter of self-preservation, will cease 
to associate with the disorderly family. On the 
same principle, and when the case becomes notori- 
ous, the Association will drop a delinquent church 
from its Minutes. 

" In the application of this supposed case to the 



SOVEREIGNTY OF CHURCH OR ASSOCIATION I 1 3 

associational connection, it will be understood 
that the conduct of a church must be open and 
flagitious to require a discontinuance of customary, 
fraternal intercourse. Not every defection in doc- 
trine or mistake in discipline would justify the 
withdrawal of all influence and intercourse. Many 
cases of irregularity and defect may exist, without 
the virtual declaration of non-intercourse. Much 
good can be done by ministers of the gospel and 
other brethren visiting the church, holding a series 
of meetings, and by preaching, exhortations, and 
prayer, a revival may be produced and the evil 
cured. Such means are far more efficient and 
profitable than committees of Associations, councils, 
or any assumptions of authority whatever. 

"The calling of ' councils/ is an extensive 
practice of the Baptist denomination in the North- 
ern States. Councils originate from the invitation 
of a church, or a party in a church, and occasion- 
ally from the concerted action of neighboring 
churches, sending an invitation for their pastors 
and deacons, or other members, to ' sit in council ' 
and adjudicate on certain matters. Ordinarily, 
there are three subjects that are submitted to such 
councils. First, the ordination of ministers. Sec- 
ond, the recognition of newly formed churches, as 
in fellowship. Third, the adjustment of difficulties 
in a church. In the last case the council is mutual, 
when the parties agree to call the council to adjust 

H 



114 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

the matter, or ex parte, as when one of the parties 
makes the call and notifies the other to attend. In 
some instances councils have been called to adjudi- 
cate matters of difficulty between two churches. 

" It is conceded by all Baptists that these ' coun- 
cils ' have no ecclesiastical power, and can only 
advise and exert a friendly influence, and not ad- 
judicate the matter. This practice was not an 
original Baptist feature, but seems to have been 
borrowed from the Puritans of Massachusetts and 
Connecticut, who were semi-Presbyterians in some 
features of church polity. 

"A ' more excellent way' prevails in the Baptist 
churches in the Southern States, and to a large ex- 
tent in the Mississippi Valley. Instead of send- 
ing to churches for a species of representative action, 
a church which is in difficulty, or needs help, or 
has a preacher to be ordained, gives invitations to 
individual persons, ministers, and other brethren, 
to arbitrate on difficulties, or to aid in examining 
or setting apart a candidate to the ministry. 

"An arbitration is a sure and safe mode of ad- 
justing difficulties, and avoids all appearance of 
factitious authority, but the arbiters should never 
act unless the parties pledge themselves to abide by 
their decision ; for the individual party who will 
not confide in the judgment and abide by the de- 
cision of impartial, disinterested brethren mani- 
fests the obstinacy of temper and that degree of 



SOVEREIGNTY OF CHURCH OR ASSOCIATION I I 5 

selfishness that wholly unfits him for membership 
in a church of Christ, and should be excluded as 
an incorrigible offender, 

" If these principles are correct, then all declara- 
tions of non-fellowship by churches, Associations, 
or other organized bodies, concerning other churches 
are wrong — are a usurpation of power that does 
not belong to them ; and in its tendency is sub- 
versive of the New Testament order of churches.'' 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE RIGHT OF A CHURCH TO RECEIVE INTO ITS FEL- 
LOWSHIP EXCLUDED MEMBERS 

THE unimpeachable independence of a gospel 
church implies the right to withdraw fellow- 
ship from any member whom that body considers 
unworthy of it. But suppose her action is unjust, 
unscriptural, prompted by personal prejudice, or 
malice, or by party feeling. Is there no refuge or 
redress — no appeal to a higher court? 

A Presbyterian synod can have the act of a local 
presbytery reversed; so can the other " federal 
churches." Baptists have no court of appeal. 
There lies the weakness of independency. There 
is no appeal for wrongfully expelled members, or 
ministers. But the fact is that the independency 
of a church giving it the right to withdraw fellow- 
ship, proves that the fact of independence of an- 
other church gives to it the right to extend fellow- 
ship to whomsoever is deemed worthy of it. 

Different methods as well as different views have 

marked Baptists in regard to this troublesome 

question. As an instance, the First Baptist Church, 

in New Albany, Indiana, had expelled a number of 

116 



RIGHT TO RECEIVE EXCLUDED MEMBERS WJ 

its members on account of difference of opinion in 
regard to officers of the church, including the pas- 
tor. An ex parte council, that is to say, the neigh- 
boring churches, including those of Louisville, were 
requested by the expelled members to meet in 
New Albany and advise these people in regard to 
their future course. The expelling church was also 
invited, but refused to attend. After a full inves- 
tigation, these brethren as an advisory council 
decided that those excluded brethren might be 
scripturally received into any other Baptist church, 
with no impeachment of gospel law, or the entire 
independency of gospel churches. The matter was 
settled, a new church composed of these expelled 
members was organized, and time healed all the 
wounds and the two churches soon worked har- 
moniously. 

RIGHTS OF EXCLUDED CHURCH MEMBERS. 1 

"We have no doubt that many worthy persons 
are, even now, suffering under erroneous, not to 
say unrighteous, church decisions, and that these 
persons ought to have justice done them, no good 
man will doubt ; but the mode of doing it is not so 
easily settled upon. We think the case remedi- 
able, but not by neighboring churches assuming to 
exercise paramount ecclesiastical authority over the 
delinquent church. 

1 From the " Banner and Pioneer," 1848, W. C. Buck, editor. 



Il8 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

"We have not room to present our views at 
large, and must, therefore, satisfy ourselves with the 
following very condensed exhibition of them. We 
look upon it, that each church, duly organized, is 
entirely and absolutely independent of every other 
church, and that no other body has a right to in- 
terfere with its internal government. If, therefore, 
the churches remain separate and unassociated, 
there could be no transfer of membership from one 
church to any other by letter ; they could only be 
admitted upon a profession of their faith and suit- 
able evidence of their having been baptized. In 
this state of things it could in no way infract rela- 
tions of union and correspondence where none ex- 
isted between churches, should one church receive 
the excluded members of another. The difficulty 
in relation to the cases under consideration arises 
from the relations of correspondence and union 
into which the churches have entered. It is upon 
this principle alone that associational and other 
councils and advisory bodies are authorizable. 
But these have no rights to interfere with the inde- 
pendence of churches. They cannot force a church 
to restore an excluded member, however wrong- 
fully done. All that can be done in the case is to 
counsel and advise her to do her duty ; and if she 
persists in her injustice, then let the other churches 
withdraw from her their union and correspondence. 
And any church can then do justice to her injured 



RIGHT TO RECEIVE EXCLUDED MEMBERS II9 

member without any infringement upon her ecclesi- 
astical rights, or any violation of the social compact, 
just as though such compact had never existed. 
This we regard as the only legitimate remedies 
which this class of cases admit of, and we are per- 
suaded that there are many such, and that they 
ought to be attended to. An unjust and tyran- 
nical church should receive no more countenance 
than an unjust man." 

A similar condition of affairs existed in the 
Broome Street Baptist Church, in New York, dur- 
ing the agitation of the Bible revision movement. 
The church of which Spencer H. Cone, president 
of the Bible Union, was pastor, voted to invite the 
" Union" to hold its anniversary meeting in the 
church house. The trustees of the church promptly 
refused to comply. They were arraigned by the 
church and expelled. They called an ex parte 
council which decided that any Baptist church 
might consistently receive these excluded members 
into its fellowship. They accordingly were received 
into neighboring Baptist churches. The whole 
matter ended with this. 

In 1857 a member of the Walnut Street Baptist 
Church, Louisville, Ky., was expelled because of 
his course toward its pastor. The East Baptist 
Church after a full examination of the Walnut 
Street Church records, received him into its fel- 
lowship. The Walnut Street Church sent a query 



120 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 






to the next meeting of the Long Run Association, 
" Is it in order for a church to receive an excluded 
member of another church in the same Associa- 
tion?" The Association made answer, that the 
question had been acted upon at a previous Asso- 
ciation, in a circular letter, that the right to ex- 
clude, on the ground of church independency one 
whom she could not fellowship, proved the right 
of another church to receive on the ground of 
church independency. 

In the year 1878 R. C. Buckner, the organizer 
and successful manager of the Buckner Orphan 
School, was expelled from the First Baptist Church 
of Dallas, because of his opposition to the reception 
of a brother by letter into said church. His cre- 
dentials were demanded — which he declined to 
surrender. Some seventeen others were expelled 
with him. A council was called. It met in Dallas, 
and announced as its decision (in substance), after 
a full investigation of the case, that with no in- 
fringement on the rights of the First Baptist 
Church of Dallas in withdrawing its fellowship 
from these brethren, they might scripturally form 
themselves into a church, and be recognized as 
such by all other Baptist churches. Drs. R. C. 
Burleson, B. H. Carroll, and other distinguished 
ministers were in the large and influential council. 
They accordingly formed themselves into a Second 
Baptist Church, were recognized as in order and 



RIGHT TO RECEIVE EXCLUDED MEMBERS 121 

grew. Time and thought, as in the other cases, 
healed the painful wounds, and the two churches 
finally united. 

Doctor Buckner was heartily received into the 
united church and has been for years the president 
of the great Texas Baptist State Convention. 

The case of J. R. Graves was so similar that it 
need only be mentioned. The Central Church, at 
Nashville, Tennessee, was formed of excluded 
members of the First Church. A council approved 
their action and there the matter ended. 



CHAPTER XVII 

WHEN WERE THE FIRST GOSPEL CHURCHES OR 
CHURCH FORMED? 

WHEN, where, and how the first gospel church 
originated is in itself a very unessential 
matter. But with the very general and unscrip- 
tural conception of "the church" and "the Cath- 
olic Church," with all the ritualism and claimed 
authority and hierarchical dignities which that idea 
carries with it, the question becomes important. 
Pedobaptists hold that "the day of Pentecost " was 
" the birthday of the church." Baptists hold "gen- 
erally" that churches were formed during the 
earthly lifetime of the Lord Jesus. In deciding 
this it is necessary to repeat the questions, then 
answers — what is a church, and were baptized be- 
lievers assembled for worship a gospel church ? 

I. WHAT IS A CHURCH ? 

It is, in the original words of the Lord and the 
apostles, an " ecclesia" and of this same Smith's 
"Bible Dictionary" says (that church) : " In accord- 
ance with its derivation it originally meant an 
assembly called out by legitimate authority. This 

122 



THE FIRST GOSPEL CHURCHES 1 23 

is the ordinary classical sense of the woid." The 
Lord chose that word with its then general mean- 
ing to designate the called-out assembled disciples 
who met in his name then, or should ever afterward 
do so, by his authority and for his worship, with 
purpose of permanent affiliation and fellowship. 
He therefore told his disciples, not the apostles 
only, " If thy brother sin against thee, go show him 
his fault between him and thee alone" (R. V.). 
" But if he hear thee not, take with thee one or 
two more " (evidently having those of a similar 
relation or fellowship). " And if he refuse to hear 
them tell it to the church {ecclesid), and if he refuse 
to hear the (ecclesid) church" — the assembled 
brethren. This is not a future condition of things. 
It was the present. There must have been such 
regular assemblies, then, that could be appealed to, 
that could hear and decide. And the reason is given 
for this exercise of authority. u For where two or 
three are gathered together (or an ecclesid) in my 
name, there am I in the midst of them," in his 
divine influence. The Lord Jesus, we repeat, was 
not speaking of the future. He prefaces this 
assurance of his presence in the little ecclesia by 
the other gracious and present assurance. 

" Again I say unto you, that if two of you shall 
agree on earth, as touching anything that they shall 
ask, it shall be done for them." It was the now. 
Where two or three are gathered was the now, and 



124 BAPTIST WAtfMARKS 

tell it to the ecclesia was the now. There were 
gatherings in the name of Jesus during his minis- 
try. There were churches to which duties were 
assigned during his life. Churches were gathered 
— that is, little assemblies that could hear and 
admonish while Jesus lived. The birthday of the 
church or churches is not recorded. But as true 
as the gospel the birthday of the church was not 
Pentecost. 

II. WERE BAPTIZED BELIEVERS A CHURCH WHEN 
ASSEMBLED IN THE LORD'S NAME? 

Passing over those baptized by John the Baptist, 
whose mission was "To make ready for the Lord 
a people prepared for him" (R. V.), were none 
of these people who were made ready and pre- 
pared for him gathered into an ecclesia, or wor- 
shiping assembly? But we read, "After these 
things," after the preaching of the gospel of salva- 
tion from the lips of the Saviour, "then came 
Jesus and his disciples into Judea, and there he 
tarried and baptized." John's disciples said to 
John : " Rabbi, he that was with thee beyond Jor- 
dan to whom thou hast been witness, behold the 
same baptizeth and all men come unto him." Again, 
" When therefore the Lord knew how the Pharisees 
had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing 
more disciples than John (although Jesus baptized 
not, but his disciples)." He made disciples. They 



THE FIRST GOSPEL CHURCHES 125 

were believers in him. They were born again. 
They had eternal life. " Whosoever believeth in 
him hath eternal life." They were born 'of the 
Spirit. They were baptized on a confession of 
faith in Jesus as the Son of God. They lived in 
different regions, with love for each other. Did 
they never meet together? Were there no two or 
three meeting in Christ's name? Were there no 
fellowship or affiliation — no ecclesia or called-out 
assemblies of the "two or three" in his name, to 
whom the fault of a brother could be told ? No 
church or churches to hear and decide? Can any 
one suppose that these baptized believers, born of 
the Spirit and one in Christ Jesus, never formed 
themselves into assemblies to worship their Lord 
and aid each other? "Tell it to the church" 
shows they did this, and their love for each other 
and the natural and spiritual attraction of like to 
like proves that there were little ecclesias — churches 
— with Christ in their midst before Pentecost. 

" For it became him, for whom are all things, . . in 
bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain 
of their salvation perfect through sufferings." " For 
which cause he is not ashamed to call them breth- 
ren, saying ... in the midst of the {ecclesia) church 
will I sing praises unto thee." 

Jesus sang with his brethren praises in the midst 
of the church. Then there was a church, or 
churches, meeting for divine worship before Pente- 



126 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

cost. It may be said that this is prophetic, but 
the fact that Paul quoted David's prediction and 
applies it as fulfilled in the life of Jesus while on 
earth, consequently there was a church, or churches, 
before Pentecost, not fully equipped, not fully or- 
ganized, not fully endowed, yet a church ; yet a 
church, or churches, in the eye of the Lord — guided 
by his injunction and blessed with his presence. 

They met seemingly daily for ten days as a 
church, and then, after the extraordinary gift of the 
Spirit — visible and miraculous — there were added 
unto them — this same one hundred and twenty, in 
one day, by confession and baptism, three thou- 
sand souls — " added to them," called in the last 
verse (Acts 2) "the church." It was not a new- 
born or newly constituted ecclesia. The three thou- 
sand were not, with the others, organized into a 
new institution. There is no intimation of the or- 
ganization or the birth of a church. 

It was the one hundred and twenty, with the 
apostles, to whom the three thousand were added. 
And they were added to the chureh. Sure as the 
stars shine there were churches before Pentecost, 
and, whatever day was its birthday, it certainly was 
not the day of Pentecost. It may be remarked 
that their character as a church, or the " notes of 
a true church," as creeds say, correspond to nearly 
all the definitions of a church by " Protestant" 
councils and confessions. I quote but three : "The 






THE FIRST GOSPEL CHURCHES \2*] 

church is a congregation of faithful men where the 
pure word of God is preached and the sacraments 
duly administered according to Christ's ordi- 
nances" (Church of England). "A congregation 
of saints in which the gospel is rightly taught and 
the sacraments rightly administered " (Lutheran). 
" A congregation of men embracing the gospel of 
Christ and rightly administering the sacraments" 
(Saxon). These one hundred and twenty were a 
congregation of faithful men ; they preached the 
gospel of Christ and rightfully administered the 
ordinance, baptism ; they were a church, and the 
blessing of the Pentecost came upon a regular 
church of the Lord Jesus Christ. I doubt not 
there were in Galilee and other places assemblies 
like this, except for the absence of the Twelve, 
before Pentecost. The only way to evade this 
scriptural positive is to affirm that the baptisms by 
John and also by Jesus (by his disciples) were not 
Christian baptisms. But if so, then the church at 
Pentecost — the hundred and twenty, called by the 
inspired apostles " the church" and by Pedobap- 
tists the "first church" — was composed of unbap- 
tized people. None of them was rebaptized, as all 
admit. The church, therefore, was composed en- 
tirely of unbaptized disciples. And baptism is the 
initiatory ordinance, the door into the church. Is 
not this an absurdity ? 

In addition to the foregoing direct truths of 



128 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

gospel churches during the earthly life of the 
Lord Jesus, the words of the apostle in Hebrews 
2 : io, the inspired writer is speaking of the Lord's 
earthly life. 

Is it not strange that ecclesiastics, theological 
writers, and church creeds affirm that baptism is the 
door into the church or churches and yet deny that 
there was a church or churches formed by those 
baptized disciples, followers of the Lord Jesus ? 

" Baptism was the initiatory rite into the Chris- 
tian church," says Smith's " Bible Dictionary." 
This dogma is found substantially in eveiy Pedo- 
baptist creed. It is charged against Baptists that 
they deny church-membership to infants and there- 
fore deny heaven to them because they refuse to 
baptize them. But here are disciples made by the 
Lord's personal preaching, born of the Spirit and 
baptized by him or by his disciples in his presence, 
yet not in the church, for there was no church 
according to those very writers. And if infants 
were lost because not in the church, so were they. 
Can absurdity go further than this ? 

If baptism admits into "the Christian church," 
the baptized by the Lord Jesus were in the church, 
and therefore there was a church or churches be- 
fore Pentecost, " and Pentecost was not the birth- 
day of the church." 

That there was a church or churches before 
Pentecost is evident from Luke's record in the Acts 



THE FIRST GOSPEL CHURCHES 1 29 

of the Apostles. We read that after the Lord's 
ascension "the disciples were together the evening 
of the first day of the week/' It is not confined 
to the apostles, for we read, "But Thomas, one of 
the Twelve, was not with them," distinguishing 
him from the "disciples" by calling him one of 
the Twelve. Then after eight days the disciples 
again met and Thomas was with them, an ecclesia. 
After his ascension "they returned to Jerusalem. 
And when they were come in (to a dwelling) they 
went up into an inner chamber where were abiding 
both Peter (and the ten apostles named) with the 
women and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and with 
his brethren." These, with the one hundred and 
twenty disciples, made one hundred and forty 
disciples. Of them it is recorded "they all con- 
tinued steadfastly in prayer." Was it a church? 
They were all believers, born of the Spirit, baptized 
into the Lord's name, and assembled for his wor- 
ship and to carry out his will. I again ask, Was 
it an ecclesia ? or was there no church born ? These 
one hundred and forty baptized believers voted by 
ballot or lot for a successor to the fallen Judas, and, 
under the guidance of the Lord, to whom they 
earnestly prayed, they chose Matthias, and he was 
numbered with the Twelve. Their action and 
choice was recognized and binding. 






CHAPTER XVIII 



IRREGULAR IMMERSION 



IN the organization of a church it is required, 
among the Baptists, that "the persons being 
first orderly baptized, according to the command 
of Christ, give up themselves to the Lord and to 
one another." l 

What, then, is it to be orderly baptized ? 

"In 1791, a case was brought before the Ketoc- 
ton Association which produced considerable agita- 
tion. Jas. Hutchinson, who was born in New Jer- 
sey, but raised in Loudoun County, Virginia, had 
gone to Georgia, and there first became a Metho- 
dist, and then a Baptist preachei. Previous to his 
joining the Baptists, he had been baptized by a 
Methodist. When he offered to join the Baptists 
of Georgia, it was made a question whether his 
baptism, being performed by an unbaptized per- 
son, was valid ? The Georgia Baptists decided that 
it was valid. In the year above mentioned, Mr. 
Hutchinson came to Virginia to see his relatives in 
Loudoun County. While he was there, his preach- 
ing became effectual to the conversion of many. 
1 "Philadelphia Confession," p. 78. 



IRREGULAR IMMERSION I 3 I 

Mr. Hutchinson baptized them. These things 
stirred up the question in the Ketocton Associa- 
tion, whether the baptism of Hutchinson and his 
disciples was valid ? The decision here was just 
the reverse of the decision in Georgia. They de- 
termined not to receive either him or those bap- 
tized by him, unless they would submit to be re- 
baptized. After some time they consented, and 
the ordinance was re-administered.' ' 1 

In 1787, the First Church of New York sent to 
the Philadelphia Association the following query : 

"Whether a person, applying to one of our 
churches for admission as a member, and satisfies 
the church that he has been previously baptized by 
immersion, on a profession by his faith in Christ, 
but at the same time confesses the person who ad- 
ministered the ordinance was, at the time, neither 
ordained to the work of the ministry, nor baptized 
himself by immersion, but only chosen and called 
by a religious society to officiate as their teacher 
or minister, should be received?" 2 

This was laid over to the next Association, and 
answered as follows: 

" In answer to a query from the First Church in 
New York, of last year, held over to this time, re- 
specting the validity of baptism by a person who 
had never been baptized himself, nor yet ordained, 

1 Semple's " History Virginia Baptists," p. 302. 
2 See "Minutes Philadelphia Association," p. 229. 



132 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

we reply, that we deem such baptism null and 
void : 

" First. Because a person that has not been bap- 
tized must be disqualified to administer baptism to 
others, and especially if he be also unordained. 

" Second. Because to admit such baptism as 
valid, would make void the ordinances of Christ, 
throw contempt on his authority, and tend to con- 
fusion ; for if baptism be not necessary for an ad- 
ministrator of it, neither can it be for church 
communion, which is an inferior act ; and if such 
baptism be valid, then ordination is unnecessary, 
contrary to Acts 14:23; 1 Tim. 4:14; 1 Peter 1 : 
5, and our Confession of Faith, Chap. 27. 

"Third. Of this opinion we find were our Asso- 
ciation in times past, who put a negative on such 
baptisms in 1729, 1732, 1744, 1749, and 1768. 

" Fourth. Because such administrator has no 
commission to baptize, for words of the commission 
were addressed to the apostles, and their successors 
in the ministry, to the end of the world, and these 
are such as whom the church of Christ appoint to 
the whole work of the ministry." l 

This extended quotation from the minutes of the 
Philadelphia Association covers the whole ground, 
and refers to the previous answers of a body back 
to 1729. 

" This is the oldest Association of Baptists in 

1 See "Minutes Philadelphia Association," p. 238. 






IRREGULAR IMMERSION I 33 

America, and as a matter of course its adjudica- 
tions ought to be respected and have their due 
weight, not only because of its age, but because 
from the first it had within its bounds some of the 
ripest scholars and ablest divines in the denomina- 
tion. David Benedict, for many years past has, 
without doubt, held a more extensive correspond- 
ence with the Baptists upon this continent than any 
man in America, and therefore has a better right 
to know what the practice of the denomination has 
been upon the subject under consideration than 
any other man. He says in his "Church History 
of Ancient and Modern Baptists," in a note at 
page 943 : 

" I have ascertained by my extensive correspond- 
ence that by far the greater part of our denomina- 
tion both re-baptize and re-ordain all who join 
them, from whatever churches they come. A 
majority omit re-baptism in favor of those candi- 
dates who come from the Freewill Baptists, the 
Methodists, and Campbellites, or Reformers." 

The following from the oldest Association in 
Kentucky, bears on the same subject : l 

" The committee to which the following queries 
from the First Baptist Church in Lexington were 
referred, viz : 

" First. Can persons baptized on a profession of 
faith by an administrator not regularly ordained, 
1 Minutes of Elkhorn Association, 1822. 



134 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

be received into our churches, under any circum- 
stances whatever, without being again baptized ? 

" Report in answer to the question, that it is not 
regular to receive such members. In the minutes 
of 1802, this Association defined valid baptism to 
consist in the administration of the ordinance by 
immersion by an administrator legally called to 
preach the gospel, and ordained as the Scriptures 
direct ; and that the candidate for baptism make a 
profession of his faith in Jesus Christ, and that he be 
baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, 
and of the Holy Ghost, by dipping the whole body 
in water. 

"J. Vardeman, 

E. Waller, 

James Fish back, 

John Edwards, 






Committee" 



CHAPTER XIX 



ALIEN IMMERSIONS 



THIS term (somewhat an unfortunate one), with 
all it implies, had long agitated Baptists of 
the South and West. They are by no means agreed 
upon it — that is, in regard to the reception of a 
member who has been immersed by a Pedobaptist 
or Disciple (Campbellite). Joseph W. Weaver, 
who has been for more than thirty years pastor at 
Louisville, Ky., had been in early life immersed by 
a Methodist. He united with a Baptist church 
with no question as to the validity of his baptism. 
After some fifteen years, and while the esteemed 
pastor of the Chestnut Street Church, Louisville, 
he voluntarily requested Dr. J. P. Boyce, president 
of the Southern Theological Seminary, to re-im- 
merse or, as stated, baptize him. 

Drs. Boyce and Weaver's reasons were, not the 
want of succession in the former administrator, but 
the fact that the act was performed with an unscrip- 
tural design, and that the design, that is, the scrip- 
tural symbolism of the ordinance as in the Lord's 
Supper, was essential to its validity. 

Baptism is to show forth the Lord's death, burial, 

i35 



I36 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

and resurrection, and the believer's unity with 
him in his atoning work. Neither Pedobaptists 
nor the Disciples baptize for this, i. e., simply to 
show this forth in the symbolic action of baptism. 
Therefore immersions administered by them are 
invalid. There are other reasons, of course, but 
this is the principal one. Churches generally 
throughout the South and Southwest reject such 
irregular immersions, but many receive into their 
churches persons otherwise deemed worthy of fel- 
lowship, when such persons are satisfied with his 
or her baptism. Churches have to act in all such 
cases for themselves. No rigid rule should be a 
guidance, and each case should be decided upon 
its merits. Uniformity in this usage cannot be ex- 
pected. It, however, would be much better if all 
such irregular immersions were discouraged. The 
practice of some pastors of baptizing persons who 
intend to join other denominations cannot be ap- 
proved. It is most evidently encouraging them in 
a course which is unscriptural. 









CHAPTER XX 

THE INCLUSIVE AND EXCLUSIVE CHARACTER OF A 
GOSPEL CHURCH THE " OLD LANDMARK" 

" /^\UGHT Baptist ministers (or churches) to 
\y invite Pedobaptist (or Campbellite) minis- 
ters to preach in their pulpits or meeting-houses ? 

This has been a question of disagreement, of 
controversy, and to a limited extent alienation, 
among Baptists in the South. 

A strong paper by the highly respected Dr. J. 
M. Pendleton gave rise to it. Pie endeavored to 
show that all such innovations were contrary to the 
Scriptures and to the usages of Baptists. 

The work was entitled "An Old Landmark Re- 
set." His view was ably championed by J. R. 
Graves and A. C. Dayton (author of that popular 
work, "Theodosia Earnest"), and also by many 
leading men in the South and West. Those who 
agreed with Dr. Pendleton's conclusions, and who 
acted according to them, were called " Old Land- 
markers." They were, if not a majority, a very 
numerous portion of the churches of the sections 
named. But their views were sharply opposed by 
able and influential writers. 

*37 



I38 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

There is one friendly way of reconciling these 
discordant views and practices. It was put forth at 
the time when the controversy was at intense heat, 
though in a somewhat different spirit and style. 

1. An ecclesia — a gospel church — is inclusive. It 
invites, it receives, it permits no part to be taken 
in its actions, or duties, by any one but a member 
of its own body. All others are outsiders, and are 
excluded from its meetings or else ignored. The 
one hundred and twenty (with some others united 
to them — the women and Mary, the mother of 
Jesus, and his brethren) in returning from the 
Mount of Olives went into an upper room. There 
this church, as it is named, chose the successor of 
Judas. They abode inclusive and exclusive until 
Pentecost. To them were soon added the three 
thousand — many of whom doubtless had been bap- 
tized by John or by the Lord's disciples, but were 
not in the church. "And those who gladly re- 
ceived the word were baptized, and they con- 
tinued with one accord steadfast in the apostles' 
doctrine and in fellowship." It was a covenant- 
bound inclusive and exclusive body. And so 
Peter and John, released from the council of 
priests and rulers " being let go, went to their 
own company and reported." They went to the 
church and reported to it. Again, we read of Paul 
and Barnabas returned from their first missionary 
tour to Antioch, " and when they were come and 



THE OLD LANDMARK 139 

had gathered the church together, they rehearsed 
all that God had wrought by them." The church 
had sent them forth after the laying-on of hands 
by the teachers or ministers, and to the church 
they reported the blessed work done. It was to 
this divinely established, inclusive and exclusive 
body, they felt responsible under God. They 
therefore gathered its members together and no 
others. This has been the usage of Baptists 
through the ages, and is so (with exceptions) still. 
The example is imperative. None but the mem- 
bers of a church has any right to be even present 
at its meetings, and only when mere circumstances 
or expediencies prevent one in fellowship with the 
church can he or she be admitted to a seat, but 
not to vote in its church meetings. 

This is the old landmark. It is scriptural. It 
is regular. But when this is transferred to the 
public worshiping assembly — when the rules guid- 
ing the ecclesia are made to bear on the public 
preaching service, and it is thought to be inclusive 
and exclusive, and none must take part in its doings 
and service any more than in the church meeting, 
then there is an unscriptural and misleading appli- 
cation of the laws of a church to a promiscuous 
gathering. This is the practical mistake of those 
called "Old Landmarkers." They carry the ex- 
clusive character of a church into the public as- 
sembly, and as none but the baptized believers 



I40 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

can be invited to take part in the one, they con- 
clude that none but baptized believers can take 
part in the other. 

2. In addition to this it is evident that preach- 
ing is not an official act or duty. Others besides or- 
dained ministers have always among Baptists been 
encouraged to preach the gospel. After the death 
of Stephen the church at Jerusalem was scattered 
abroad. " Therefore they that were scattered 
abroad, went everywhere preaching the word." 
But these were not ordained ministers. 

And so Paul writing from Rome to the Philip- 
pians tells of some preachers whom he could not 
fellowship. " What then," he says. " Notwith- 
standing every way, whether in pretense or in truth 
(sincerity), Christ is preached, I therein do rejoice, 
yea, and will rejoice." These contentious disfellow- 
shiped preachers of Christ could not have belonged 
to the church or churches in Ruine. But if they 
preached Christ "I rejoiced," writes Paul, for he 
who preaches the gospel is a gospel preacher. 

A minister — an administrator of the ordinances — 
is different from a preacher, and Baptists have 
always distinguished between them. " Let us be 
logical and we will be just," said Napoleon III., in 
his Caesar. " Let us be scriptural and we shall be 
right," say Baptists. 

It is sadly true that the sacredness and respon- 
sibility of the churches are greatly impaired by the 






THE OLD LANDMARK I4I 

rule of deacons, the formation of advisory com- 
mittees, and even of congregational societies made 
up often of persons not members of the church. 
These forms of government remove from the mem- 
bership their sense of obligation and duty. The 
church frequently means the church roll ; few things 
(except the calling of a pastor) are brought before 
the church. All this is done by a " Board " of 
deacons or an advisory committee. "Tell it to 
the church" clearly proves its responsibility and 
authority, and that authority and responsibility 
should be impressed upon every member, for his 
own sake as well as for the sake of the church. 
This is an old landmark, and it needs resetting 
where it has been removed. 

Intercommunion among Baptists rests on the 
same basis. No one has a right to the ordinance 
of the Supper in a church of which he is not a 
member. But when one is present who would be 
received into the fellowship of that church, and 
who if expedient would become a member, he or 
they are invited to participate. The church is still 
"one bread" or loaf. And this is the practice of 
Baptists generally. 

The lines separating Old Landmark Baptists 
from their brethren are now nearly, if not entirely, 
obliterated, and the churches and ministers of the 
South and North are at one in this as in doctrine — 
a united brotherhood. 



CHAPTER XXI 



THE NAME BAPTIST 






INDIVIDUALS and societies are usually passive 
in receiving a name, " The disciples were first 
called Christians at Antioch." They did not select 
it. It was given to them by their enemies. 

However lightly we may ask "What's in a name? " 
we know for certain that the Lord God considered 
a name worthy of his attention as both important 
and significant. He gave Adam his name, "man," 
He named Eve, "life." He changed the name 
of Abram, "father of altitude," to Abraham, "the 
father of a multitude." And so Jacob, "supplanter," 
to Israel, "a prince of God." Indeed all the angelic 
beings whose persons appear in the divine record 
have significant names; as Michael, "who is like 
unto God " ; Uriel, "God is my light" ; and Ga- 
briel, "hero of God" ; each name ending in el y 
"God." 

We might mention the long list of prophets and 
fathers having the word el prefixed or affixed, 
showing the significance of their names. But turn 
we to the New Testament. In its very opening 
we read : "And the angel said unto him, Fear not 
142 



THE NAME BAPTIST 1 43 

Zacharias, thy prayer is heard, and thy wife Elisa- 
beth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his 
name John/' whose Hebrew is "Johanan," mean- 
ing "Jehovah is gracious." Was there nothing in 
a name, when such care, such precision, was used 
by the Lord himself in giving men for whom he 
had a special mission, a significant and distinguished 
appellation ? 

But now comes the fact that John is named the 
Baptist, or Baptizer, so named by the inspired word 
when it announces the first promulgation of the gos- 
pel of the Lord. " In those days came John the 
Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judea." 

"The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, 
the Son of God. John did baptize in the wilder- 
ness and preach the baptism of repentance for the 
remission of sins." The name John, "Jehovah is 
gracious," was most significant of the gospel he 
announced. The distinguished appellation, Bap- 
tist, must have signified the basis on which that 
graciousness of Jehovah rested. For Baptist, of 
course, implied not only baptizer, but baptism. 
And baptism implied and showed forth the atoning 
work of Christ ; that Christ would die and rise again 
was the foundation of the gospel. " Therefore," 
says the inspired apostle, "we are buried with him 
by baptism, . . that like as Christ was raised up 
from the dead." Baptism is a sign, the sign of 
Christ's atoning work. John showed forth Christ's 



144 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

atoning work by voice and ordinance. " Behold, 
the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the 
world." How? By his death, burial, and resur- 
rection. Baptism declares in living picture this 
wondrous fact and he who showed forth this fact 
by baptizing was called by divine direction, not 
simply baptizer, but the Baptist. 

Of the reasons for calling the first proclaimer of 
the gospel of Jesus Christ the Baptist, we shall 
speak farther on. At present we simply state the 
unquestionable fact that his appellation was by 
divine arrangement, and we turn to the question : 
Is there any scriptural significance in the names 
assumed, not given, by the various religious bodies ? 

Passing by the Oriental establishments let us ask 
what is the meaning of Roman Catholic, or Catholic 
without the prefix Roman ? Catholic simply means 
universal or general. That any institution can be 
Roman and yet universal is a solecism. It would 
be as incorrect to say the London catholic (or 
universal) church, or the New York world-wide 
church. But suppose it were universal, which it is 
not, and never was or will be, does that give any 
intimation of its scripturalness, or of the principles 
on which it is founded ? Mohammedism might be 
universal, that is catholic — and it is about as much 
so as Romanism — and yet be the same imposture. 
There is nothing, we affirm, in the boastful name 
of "Catholic " but the ambitious desire for univer- 



THE NAME BAPTIST I45 

sal clerical rule. It implies no gospel principles 
and has no spiritual significance. 

The Lutheran Church takes the name of a man 
and suggests nothing more than his alliance with 
kings and governments on its foundation. 

Episcopal simply means the rule of bishops. It 
is office and government. According to the New 
Testament every gospel assembly or church had its 
pastor or overseer, not as ruler but as teacher 
and pastor. But even if that word did show that 
such pastor were the governing power of the church, 
why should this fact be given such importance as 
to name the whole institution by it and call it the 
Episcopal Church? It only signifies discipline, or 
polity. It involves no eternal principle. Nothing 
of Christ or his atoning work. 

Presbyterian is one of the same nature. It means 
government by an eldership. Now, every gospel 
assembly when properly organized has, as did the 
apostolic churches, its elder, overseer, pastor or 
bishop : for these words are used interchangeably in 
the New Testament, and mean the same thing or 
office. Whether this elder, or these elders, are to 
govern the assembly, or the whole church is to do 
it, each member being equal with the other, has 
its importance. But there is no blood in the ques- 
tion. There is nothing that bears on the heart, or 
points to Christ's redemptive work. To call a 
church of Christ's disciples by the name of its 

K 



I46 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

church government or governors, is to leave out all 
that is essential and saving in the gospel. 

Methodist originated in the peculiar forms or 
methods of earnest people who belonged to the 
Episcopal institution. Those methods originated 
with them. They were expediencies, changeable 
and transient. They belonged to men on earth. 
Every church has its methods. But they imply no 
essential fact or truth. They take no hold on 
eternity. Why should we or any church of the 
Lord, select a name originating with themselves 
and having no bearing on the fundamental princi- 
ples of the gospel ? 

Congregationalist comes under the same form of 
questioning. It is polity, church government. 

We as Baptist are Episcopalians, every church 
has its episcopos, bishop or pastor. We are 
Methodist in this, that we have methods, of raising 
means to support the gospel and send it abroad. 
We are Presbyterians in the fact that every ordained 
minister among us is a presbyter or elder. But we 
decline being known by any of these names. None 
of them bears reference to the facts of the gospel. 
None of them points to the atoning work of Christ. 
None of them is based on essential and eternal 
principles. None of them points to a glorious 
resurrection life. None of them anchors on the 
eternal shore. They have each and all originated 
with men and are about men and their church 



THE NAME BAPTIST 1 47 

polity. They belong to earth and will end with 
time. 

We have said nothing of the venerable and much 
misused name Christian. But it is so indefinite, so 
almost meaningless, that we wonder how any in- 
telligent people can make it their distinguishing 
name. 

We too might be called by the venerable name 
Christian. But this is indefinite. Christian means, 
properly, one who believes in the Christ. There 
is a church in the city where I live whose teaching 
is, that Jesus was the Christ — but a human, mortal, 
fallible Christ — a mere man. Yet they call them- 
selves Christians, and have a right to this name in 
a primary sense. Christian has been indiscrimin- 
ately applied to all who have acknowledged the 
claims of Jesus to the Messiahship, without respect 
to their faith in what this claim involves in regard 
to his person or his work. Christian, in current 
language, includes those who deny the deity of 
Jesus and the atonement of Jesus as much as it 
does those who approve those truths. Socinian 
Christians and Arian Christians are distinguished 
from Orthodox Christians as equally believing in 
the Messiahship, but denying the divinity and 
atonement of Jesus. And further, in the language 
of the nations, Christian is a classifying term, dis- 
tinguishing the Mohammedan and the Pagan from 
the Christian nations of the world. 



I48 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

The mad crusaders who swept down on Asia 
like a torrent of fire and death ; who, after cruelties 
as heartless as ever sickened humanity, massacred, 
without respect to age or sex, the population of 
Jerusalem, and burned the synagogues crowded 
with inoffensive Jews, offered their black and 
bloody sacrifice as a Christian oblation amid Chris- 
tian songs and prayers. They were Christian war- 
riors. Such is the current meaning of the indefi- 
nite term, and though an experimental theology 
gives it another and characteristic meaning, yet 
this is defeated in the fact that ever and anon sects 
spring into existence which appropriate the word 
as a party symbol. Doubtful in origin, indefinite 
in meaning, the Christian name does not answer 
the momentous question, What think ye of Christ? 
What is his person, and what is his work ? 

The Apostle Paul tells all those who have pub- 
licly taken the name of Christ upon him in bap- 
tism, "Ye have obeyed from the heart that form 
of doctrine which was delivered unto you," or, 
as the Revised version, more correctly, "Ye be- 
came obedient from the heart to that form of teach- 
ing whereunto ye were delivered" (Rom. 6 : 17). 
The doctrine is the death, burial, and resurrection 
of Jesus Christ. This he says is the gospel he de- 
clared unto the Corinthians. Now, w T hat is the 
form of that teaching? Where is the doctrine 
embodied, pictured, voiced in an action? 



THE NAME BAPTIST 1 49 

The form of Christ's death, burial, and resurrec- 
tion is found in baptism alone. It alone stands 
forth as a commemorative monument speaking to all 
hearts and in all tongues the wondrous facts of the 
atonement ; and he who obeys from the heart this 
form and is delivered into "this" mold of doctrine, 
proclaims it by the act and by the name he bears. 

The reaches of the Rhine, as the shining waters 
flow by terraced banks, clad in vineyards and or- 
chards, mirror the green swards and russet fruits and 
purple grapes and turreted castles which adorn the 
enchanting scenery. They catch the color and 
throw back by reflection the beauties through 
which they glide. Baptism may be said to flow 
by the cross and the tomb. It seems to catch 
their color and their outline. It reflects as a mir- 
ror the greatest facts and truths in all God's uni- 
verse — the atoning work of the Son of God. You 
and I, brethren, and all who have obeyed from the 
heart that form of doctrine, expressed and con- 
fessed (not covenants of circumcision or Jewish 
ceremonials) but Christ's death and our own death 
with him and our triumph in him. "Therefore 
we are buried with him in baptism that like as 
Christ was raised from the dead, by the glory of the 
Father, even so we also should walk in newness 
of life." 

I repeat it. My name, Baptist, expresses, con- 
fesses, signifies this, and I wear it, not as a secta- 



150 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

rian appellation nor as a party shibboleth, not as a 
denominational distinction, but as the open, fear- 
less avowal of my faith in what baptism teaches — 
the atoning work of my crucified, buried, risen, 
triumphant Lord. Is there nothing in a name ? 

The name Baptist implies great principles — 
the atonement of Christ by death, burial, and 
resurrection. 

The name Baptist implies great hopes — glori- 
ous resurrection from the grave and an endless 
life of joy. 

The name Baptist implies great obligation — a 
new life of consecration to him whom we have put 
on as a garment in his ordinance — "risen with 
Christ." To live for Christ. Thank God for this 
name. It is from him, not from man. 

It is true that these Doopsgezinde> or dipped 
people, have been known by various names, gen- 
erally opprobrious and originating in the hate of 
their persecutors — " Anabaptists," " Katabaptists," 
Arnoldists, Petrobrusians, Paulicians. They called 
themselves simply "The baptized churches of Jesus 
Christ'' They are satisfied with this appellation 
still. But in the providence of God they are now 
known, without their seeking it, as Baptists — the 
very name given by God himself to the first pro- 
claimer of the gospel dispensation. So let it be. 



CHAPTER XXII 

ARE BAPTISTS PROTESTANTS? 

WH. WYCKOFF, LL. D., one of the most 
scholarly and weightiest of men among the 
Baptists, and whose name is historic, in noticing 
the following paragraph in Benedict's History : 
"Historically and technically speaking Baptists are 
not Protestants ; they had no share in any of the 
meetings or measures in which the name was de- 
rived/' said editorially : x "It must be evident on the 
least reflection that the appellation ' Protestant ' 
would be improperly applied to any denomination 
that never had any connection with Rome. No 
one, for instance, would think of calling the Jews 
Protestants or of annexing the term to the Greek 
Christians. With as little reason can it ever be as- 
sociated with the name of Baptist." He accom- 
panied this with a strong historical article of con- 
siderable length, sustaining the foregoing, which 
was copied extensively by the Baptist press, and 
heartily approved by the denomination generally, 
sixty years ago. 

1 The "Baptist Advocate/ ' of New York, (of which he was 
editor) in the issue, March 10, 1841. 

I5i 



152 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

Dr. Howell, about the same time, in his able work 
on "Communion," speaks of the "recent disposi- 
tion " to call Baptists Protestants, and condemns it 
emphatically, denying that Baptists are Protestants. 

Far back of this, Danvers, of England, in 1660, 
distinguished between Baptists and Protestants, and 
this was common among writers of those day of 
persecution. The term properly belongs to the so- 
called Reformed churches, beginning with the 
Lutheran. It was adopted by the "State Church" 
of England, and also by "the Protestant Episcopal 
Church of America." The origin of the term and 
the adoption of it is briefly this : The Diet of Spier, 
a congress of princes ruling each a separate German 
State, and who elected the emperor, and were hence 
called electors, in 1526 passed a decree that the 
emperor be petitioned to call a general religious 
council, and that in the meantime " every prince 
should have the right to manage the religious con- 
cerns of his own territory." 

This gave absolute power to these princes, who 
were the governors of each separate State, to sup- 
press or patronize public worship and individual 
profession. Under this decree the Lutheran princes, 
more indeed than the Romanist ones, pressed 
down, imprisoned, and banished, and in many cases 
put to death the Anabaptists. 

A second Diet of Spier was convened three years 
after by the emperor. His brother Ferdinand pre- 






ARE BAPTISTS PROTESTANTS? 153 

sided over this politico-religious legislature. At 
this session the former decree was reconsidered. 
In the words of Mosheim : "The decree granting 
to every prince the power to regulate religious mat- 
ters in his own territory was revoked.' ' 

"These princes remonstrated against the revo- 
cation, or in the language of jurists, they protested 
against it and appealed to the emperor, hence 
originated the name ' Protestants/ " l 

With this statement of Mosheim all historians of 
the Reformation agree. It will therefore be noticed : 
(i) The name meant a remonstrance against de- 
priving those princes of the arbitrary power of man- 
aging the religious concerns of their States, in 
which protest no Baptist then or now could join. 
(2) It was a remonstrance or protest against the 
separation of Church and State. The Protestants 
were unanimous for a State Church. In such a 
protest against soul-freedom, against the inalienable 
right of the individual to worship God according 
to the convictions of his conscience, Baptists 
could not join. Baptists never were Protestants 
against this divine right. Its proclamation and its 
practice have ever distinguished them. (3) Prot- 
estants, or Remonstrants, protested but remained 
and submitted under some evasive forms or terms. 
These princes and their people remained in the 
Catholic Church, but reformed it. They acknowl- 

1 Mosheim, Cen. 16, chap. II. 



154 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

edged it to be a true church and claimed to be 
branches of it. Baptists never submitted to its un- 
scriptural pretensions. They did not remain under 
its influence. They denied that Romanism was 
the church or a church. They declared that it was 
the predicted apostasy. And if any of them had 
been in it they came out of it, not to reform it, but 
to abandon and denounce it as the " mother of 
harlots." Baptists hold, have ever held, the very 
opposite of these Protestant princes and the organi- 
zations called the Reformed churches. Baptists 
are intensely anti-Catholic, or rather anti-Romanist 
Baptists are not Protestants, either historically, 
technically, or practically. 



CHAPTER XXIII 



BAPTIST HISTORY 



THERE are so many histories of the Baptist 
people easily obtained that a few brief ex- 
tracts and comments are all that is necessary here. 

"When Knickerbocker commenced his famous 
history of New York, he felt it essential to begin 
with the creation of the world. We labor under 
no such impression, and shall not therefore judge 
it needful to give a complete history of the Chris- 
tian church in the first ages in order to introduce 
our brief sketch of the church in the Metropolitan 
Tabernacle. Still, a few historical memoranda as 
to the Christians commonly called Baptist, will not 
be out of place. 

" Our own belief is that these people are the 
purest part of that sect which of old was every- 
where spoken against, and we are convinced that 
we have, beyond their brethren, preserved the 
ordinances of the Lord Jesus as they were delivered 
unto the saints. 

"We care very little for the ' historical church' 
argument, but if there be anything in it at all, the 
plea ought not to be filched by the clients of Rome, 

i55 



I56 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

but should be left to that community which all 
along has held by ' one Lord, one faith, and one 
baptism.' This body of believers has not been 
exalted into temporal power, or decorated with 
worldly rank, but it has dwelt for the most part in 
dens and caves of the earth, ' destitute, afflicted, 
tormented,' and so has proved itself of the house 
and lineage of the Crucified. The church which 
most loudly claims the apostolic succession wears 
upon her brow more of the marks of antichrist 
than of Christ ; but the afflicted Anabaptists, in 
their past history, have had much fellowship with 
their suffering Lord, and have borne so pure a tes- 
timony, both to truth and freedom, that they need 
in nothing to be ashamed. Their very existence 
under the calumnies and persecutions which they 
have endured, is a standing marvel, while their un- 
flinching fidelity to the Scriptures as their sole rule 
of faith, and their adherence to die simplicity of 
gospel ordinances is a sure index of their Lord's 
presence among them." l 

Following this is here given the emphatic testi- 
mony of two distinguished Dutch scholars, Doctors 
Dermout and Upeij. These were appointed by 
royal commission to prepare a history of their own 
" Dutch church." They found a baptized people 
(Baptists) all along the path. And this is their 
candid statement of the origin of that people : 
1 "Baptists : Their Origin and History, " C. H. Spurgeon. 



BAPTIST HISTORY I 57 

" Gezien hebben wij nu dat de doopsgezinden, 
die in vroegere tijden, Wederdoopers, en in latere 
tijden Mennonieten genoemd werden, oorspron- 
kelijk Waldenzen waren, die, in de geschiedenis der 
kerk sedertlang altijd zulk eene welverdiende hulde 
hebben ontvangen. Derhalve mogen de doopsge- 
zinden beschouwd worden als van ouds her de 
eenige godsdientsgemeenschap, die bestaan heeft 
van de tijden der apostelen af, als eene christelijke 
maatachapij, welke de evangelische godsdienstleer 
rein bewaard heft door alle eeuwen heen." 

[Translation.] 

We have now seen that the Baptists {Doopsge- 
zinden) who in earlier times were denominated 
Anabaptists, and in later times Mennonites, were 
originally Waldensians, who in the history of the 
church for a long time have always received such 
well deserved homage. Therefore the Doopsge- 
zinden may be regarded as the only religious com- 
munity which has endured from the times of the 
apostles as a religious society, which has kept the 
evangelical doctrine through all the centuries.' ' 

In regard to the translation by Doctor Ward 
(found in the " Ency. of Rel. Knowledge") of the 
name Doopsgezinde by the word Baptist, when it 
was the Mennonites to whom the historians had 
reference, these remarks are submitted : 

1 Zurst Dul Preda, bij W. van Berger. 



I58 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

I. That Doopsgezinde originally meant and was 
a name given to a sect that dipped. To show this 
to all with simple brevity, we cite the most elabor- 
ate and authoritative Dutch Lexicon, " The Eng- 
lish-Dutch (or Netherdutch-Holland), French and 
German Dictionary, composed by a society of 
learned men. Brussels, 1849." 

English into Dutch: "(1) Dip, indoopen ; Eng- 
lish, plunge. Hence, doopenis, dip, plunge. (2) 
Dipper, ducker, Wederdooper (dipping under), 
Anabaptist." Here is evidence that originally 
the Anabaptists were those who dipped under. 
(3) Immerge, doenverzenken, indoopen, to sink 
down, dipped. That is, dip, dooper, and immerse 
are the same. Immerse, ingendoopt ; English, 
plunge. To immerse is to dip, to plunge, and 
this in Dutch is doopt. 

Sprinkle in Dutch is the same as in English. 
" Asperger, sprinkle mit waser, and even as to 
the name Baptist we have this definition in the 
Dutch : " Baptist, Dooper, Wederdooper,' and bap- 
tistery, " doopvont, a dipping-fount.'' 

Baptism is again defined " doop" while doop is 
defined dip, immerse. And yet it must be ac- 
knowledged that the word and its derivative, like 
the Greek, has taken its modern meaning from the 
action of the administrator. The priest or preacher 
says, I dip you (indoopen), and then sprinkles water 
on the subject, and the people call this sprinkling 



BAPTIST HISTORY 159 

dipping ; and so the word which in its very nature 
and origin meant dip or immerse, is used for an 
entirely different action, to sprinkle. " Doop" in 
Dutch, is therefore as indefinite in its current im- 
port as " baptism " is in English. It means a cere- 
mony in which water is in some way used, nothing 
more. And so while the word dooping, in its secu- 
lar sense, means dipping, and in its religious use, 
rendered in English, is " baptizing," dipping, plung- 
ing, yet with the Reformed Church, and also the 
Mennonites, it is a different thing. It is sprinkling. 

But surely any unprejudiced mind must see that 
the word doop took its form from the act, — to dip 
or immerse, — that for ages this was the invariable 
practice, and that adherence to it gave the name 
Doopsgezinde to the true churches of the Lord. 

2. That the Doopsgezinde were originally churches 
of immersed believers. The inquiry into the mean- 
ing of gezinde is readily answered. We have 
found the unquestionable meaning of doop, to dip. 
Well, here is the authoritative definition of gezinde \ 
as rendered in English, gezinde, sect, system of 
belief, faith, persuasion, community, church. It 
properly means a religious community or sect. 
Hence, Doopsgezinde is literally, "dipping sect or 
church." 

Now, let it be remembered that these eminent 
ecclesiastical ministers of the State Church of Hol- 
land in the paragraph before translated were giving 



l6o BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

the result of their investigations of the origin of 
the Mennonites, that they were ''originally Wal- 
denses " and preserved the truth through all the ages 
since the times of the apostles. Then according 
to all history (Protestant and Romanist), Anabap- 
tist, Waldenses, dipped ; "dooping" in their times 
was immersion and nothing else. Hence, it is 
proven by this testimony that the Waldenses — - 
the Doopsgezinde — were not only opponents of 
infant baptism, but were also immersionists — that 
is, Baptists. This, we submit, puts the whole 
question at rest. 

To connect these dipping people (Baptists) with 
the Petrobrusians of the eleventh century, acknowl- 
edged to be a spiritual fraternity and Anti-pedobap- 
tist, and, of course (as all at that period dipped), 
immersionist, and from them to the Paulicians and 
Novatians, is certainly not guesswork. It is enough 
to know, however, that with no linked succession, 
in the words of the great Dutch historian : "These 
baptized people may be regarded as the only relig- 
ious community which had endured from the times 
of the apostles/ ' 



CHAPTER XXIV 

IN REGARD TO BAPTIST SUCCESSION 

SUCCESSION means, properly, succeeding — to 
supply the place of another, to follow on, to 
go forward in filling the places made vacant. 
In this sense Baptists have had a real and noble 
succession. 

Imperial Rome was the successor of the grand 
and ancient republic. It appropriated the names 
of her offices— senate, consul, tribune. It nom- 
inally adopted her laws, though mutilated, dam- 
aged, or entirely changed. It still kept her name, 
and monarchical despotism called itself "the re- 
public of Rome." The eagle still adorned its 
standards, and the man who ascended the throne 
— by bribery or blood — went through the farce of 
being elected by the enslaved senate. But did 
this succession make Nero the real successor of 
the elder Brutus and make his office or his princi- 
ples the same as those of Cincinnatus ? 

The papal hierarchy, by corruptions, pious 
frauds, and worldly and wicked means, succeeded 
the churches of Christ, adopted their symbolic 
names, and pretended to adhere to the doctrines 

l 161 



1 62 BAPTIST WAYMARKS 

and ordinances, the word and the principles given 
by Christ and by his apostles. But it is no more 
like these than Nero was like Brutus, and no more 
their successor than the despotic empire of the 
Caesars was the successor of the glorious republic 
of old Rome. 

Through popes, surpassing in tyranny and wick- 
edness even Nero himself, papacy and episcopacy 
trace an order of succession. They are welcome 
to it. We trace no line of unbroken order through 
such foul and bloody chronicles, but a sacred suc- 
cession of men who united together — though but 
two or three — stepped into the places of the 
fallen in the conflict; a celestial chivalry, whose 
names adorn the pages of history and whose fear- 
less fidelity to God's truth and to soul freedom 
gives them a rank with earth's heroes and places 
them on the summit of human virtue ; men and 
women whose deeds and endurance will be re- 
membered and honored when the favorites of fame 
are forgotten, and Rome, with triple-crowned ty- 
rants, shall sink like a millstone in the flood. 

All other succession — apostolic or clerical or 
ecclesiastical — is a fiction. This is real, vital, 
everlasting. We have written elsewhere : "Were 
all the records of the churches lost ; were the 
period of the planning of the apostolic churches to 
the present hour a dark, trackless chasm ; could 
we descry no living forms, hear the echo of no 



IN REGARD TO BAPTIST SUCCESSION 



163 



living voices, and see no gleam of light on all that 
waste of ages, yet in the strength of God's truth 
we would leap the gulf and clasp the hands of 
those men of God on the other side of that chasm, 
would claim unity and brotherhood, succession 
and fellowship with the members and the minis- 
ters and churches of the apostolic era." 






APPENDIX A 

BAPTIST DOCTRINE 

The Scriptures 

We believe that the Holy Bible was written by 
men divinely inspired, and is a perfect treasure of 
heavenly instruction j 1 that it has God for its au- 
thor, salvation for its end, 2 and truth without any 
mixture of error for its matter ; 3 that it reveals the 
principles by which God will judge us ; 4 and there- 
fore is, and shall remain to the end of the world, 
the true center of Christian union, 5 and the supreme 
standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and 
opinions should be tried. 6 

1 2 Tim. 3 : 16, 17 : All Scripture is given by inspiration of 
God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, 
for instruction in righteousness ; that the man of God may be 
perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works. (Also 2 Peter 
1:21; 2 Sam. 23 : 2 ; Acts I : 16 ; 3:21; John 10 : 35 ; Luke 
16 : 29-31 ; Ps. 119 : III ; Rom. 3 : I, 2.) 

2 2 Tim. 3:15: Able to make thee wise unto salvation. (Also 
I Peter I : 10-12 ; Acts II : 14 ; Rom. I : 16 ; Mark 16 : 16 ; 
John 5 : & 39. ) 

3 Prov. 30 : 5, 6 : Every word of God is pure. . . Add thou not 
unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar. 
(Also John 17 : 17 ; Rev. 22 : 18, 19 ; Rom. 3 : 4.) 

4 Rom. 2 : 12 : As many as have sinned in the law, shall be 
judged by the law. John 12 : 47, 48 : If any man hear my 

164 






BAPTIST DOCTRINE 1 65 

words . . . the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge 
him in the last day. (Also I Cor. 4 : 3, 4 ; Luke 10 : 10-16; 
12:47,48.) 

5 Phil. 3 : 16 : Let us walk by the same rule ; let us mind the 
same thing. (Also Eph. 4 : 3-6; Phil. 2 : I, 2 ; I Cor. I : 10 ; 

I Peter 4 : II.) 

6 I John 4:1: Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the 
spirits whether they are of God. Isa. 8 : 20 : To the law and to 
the testimony ; if they speak not according to this word, it is 
because there is no light in them. 1 Thess. 5 : 21 : Prove all 
things. 2 Cor. 13 : 5 : Prove your own selves. (Also Acts 17 : 

II ; I John 4:6; Jude 3 ; Eph. 6 : 17 ; Ps. 119 : 59, 60 ; Phil. 
I : 9-1 1. 

The True God. 

We believe the Scriptures teach that there is 
one, and only one, living and true God, an infi- 
nite, intelligent Spirit, whose name is Jehovah, the 
Maker and Supreme Ruler of Heaven and Earth; 1 
inexpressibly glorious in holiness, 2 and worthy of 
all possible honor, confidence, and love; 3 that in 
the unity of the Godhead there are three persons, 
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; 4 equal 
in every divine perfection, 5 and executing distinct 
but harmonious offices in the great work of re- 
demption. 6 

1 John 4 : 24 : God is a Spirit. Ps. 147 : 5 : His understand- 
ing is infinite. Ps. 83 : 18 : Thou whose name alone is Jehovah, 
art the Most High over all the earth. ( Heb. 3:4; Rom. I : 20 ; 
Jer. 10 : 10. ) 

2 Exod. 15 : 11 : Who is like unto thee . . . glorious in holi- 
ness. (Isa. 6 : 3 ; I Peter I : 15, 16 ; Rev. 4 : 6-8.) 

3 Mark 12 : 30 : Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy 
heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all 



1 66 APPENDIX A 

thy strength. Rev. 4 : II : Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive 
glory and honour and power ; for thou hast created all things, and 
for thy pleasure they are and were created. (Matt. 10 : 37 ; 
Jer. 2: 12, 13.) 

* Matt. 28 : 19 : Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptiz- 
ing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the 
Holy Ghost. John 15 : 26 : When the Comforter is come, whom 
I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, 
which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me. ( 1 Cor. 
12: 4-6; I John 5:7.) 

5 John 10 : 30 : I and my Father are one. (John 5:17; 14 : 
2 3 J 1 7 : 5> IO ; Acts 5 : 3> 4 ; * Cor. 2 : 10, II ; Phil. 2 : 5, 6.) 

6 Eph. 2 : 18 : For through him [the Son] we both have 
access by one Spirit unto the Father. 2 Cor. 13 : 14 : The 
grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the 
communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. (Rev. I : 4, 5 ; 
comp. 2 : 7.) 

The Fall of Man. 

We believe the Scriptures teach that man was 
created in holiness, under the law of his Maker; 1 
but by voluntary transgression fell from that holy 
and happy state ; 2 in consequence of which all 
mankind are now sinners, 3 not by constraint but 
choice ; 4 being by nature utterly void of that holi- 
ness required by the law of God, positively inclined 
to evil ; and therefore under just condemnation to 
eternal ruin, 5 without defense or excuse. 6 

1 Gen. I : 27 : God created man in his own image. Gen. I : 
31 : And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it 
was very good. (Eccl. 7 : 29 ; Acts 17 : 26 ; Gen. 2 : 16. ) 

2 Gen. 3 : 6-24 : And when the woman saw that the tree was 
good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to 
be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and 
did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her ; and he 



BAPTIST DOCTRINE 1 67 

did eat. . . Therefore the Lord God drove out the man ; and he 
placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubim, and a flam- 
ing sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree 
of life. (Rom. 5 : 12.) 

3 Rom. 5:19: By one man's disobedience many were made 
sinners. (John 3:6; Ps. 51 : 5 ; Rom. 5 : 15— 19 ; 8:7.) 

4 Isa. 53 : 6 : We have turned every one to his own way. 
(Gen. 6 : 12 ; Rom. 3 : 9-18. ) 

5 Eph. 2 : 1-3 : . . . Among whom also we all had our conversation 
in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the 
flesh and of the mind ; and were by nature the children of wrath, 
even as others. Rom. I : 18 : For the wrath of God is revealed 
from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, 
who hold the truth in unrighteousness. (Rom. I : 32 ; 2 : 1-16 ; 
Gal. 3 : 10; Matt. 20 : 15.) 

6 Ezek. 18 : 19, 20 : Yet say ye, Why? doth not the son bear 
the iniquity of the father? . . . The soul that sinneth it shall die. 
The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall 
the father bear the iniquity of the son ; the righteousness of the 
righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked 
shall be upon him. Rom. I : 20 : So that they are without ex- 
cuse. Rom. 3:19: That every mouth may be stopped, and all 
the world may become guilty before God. (Gal. 3 : 22. ) 

The Way of Salvation. 

We believe the Scriptures teach that the salva- 
tion of sinners is wholly of grace j 1 through the me- 
diatorial offices of the Son of God ; 2 who by the 
appointment of the Father, freely took upon him 
our nature, yet without sin ; 3 honored the divine 
law by his personal obedience, 4 and by his death 
made a full atonement for our sins ; 5 that having 
risen from the dead, he is now enthroned in 
heaven; 6 and uniting in his wonderful person the 



[&8 



APPENDIX A 



tenderest sympathies with divine perfections, he is 
every way qualified to be a suitable, a compassion- 
ate, and an all-sufficient Saviour. 7 

1 Eph. 2:5: By grace ye are saved. (Matt. 18 : II ; I John 
5 : 10 ; I Cor. 3 : 5-7 ; Acts 15 : II.) 

2 John 3 : 16 : For God so loved the world that he gave his 
only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not 
perish, but have everlasting life. (John 1 : 1-14 ; Heb. 4:14; 
12 : 24.) 

Phil. 2:6, 7 : Who, being in the form of God, thought it not 
robbery to be equal with God : but made himself of no reputa- 
tion, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in 
the likeness of men. (Heb. 2 : 9, 14 ; 2 Cor. 5 : 21.) 

4 Isa. 42 : 21 : The Lord is well pleased for his righteousness' 
sake ; he will magnify the law, and make it honourable. (Phil. 
2:3; Gal. 4 : 4, 5 ; Rom. 3 : 21.) 

5 Isa. 53 : 5 : He was wounded for our transgressions, he was 
bruised for our iniquities : the chastisement of our peace was 
upon him ; and with his stripes we are healed. (Matt. 20 : 
28 ; Rom. 3:21; 4 : 25, 26 ; I John 4 : IO ; 2 : 2 ; I Cor. 15 : 
1-3; Heb. 9: 13-15.) 

6 Heb. 1:8: Unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is 
for ever and ever. (Heb. 1:3; 8 : I ; CttC 3 : 1-4.) 

7 Heb. 7 : 25 : Wherefore he is able also to save them to the 
uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to 
make intercession for them. Col. 2:9: For in him dwelleth all 
the fulness of the Godhead bodily. Heb. 2 : 18 : In that he 
himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them 
that are tempted. (Heb. 7 : 26 ; Ps. 89 : 19 ; Ps. 45.) 

Justification. 

We believe the Scriptures teach that the great 
gospel blessing which Christ 1 secures to such as 
believe in him is justification ; 2 that justification in- 
cludes the pardon of sin, 3 and the promise of eter- 



BAPTIST DOCTRINE 1 69 

nal life on principles of righteousness ; 4 that it is 
bestowed, not in consideration of any works of 
righteousness which we have done, but solely 
through faith in the Redeemer's blood ; 5 by virtue 
of which faith his perfect righteousness is freely 
imputed to us of God; 6 that it brings us into a 
state of most blessed peace and favor with God, 
and secures every other blessing needful for time 
and eternity. 7 

1 John 1 : 16 : Of his fulness have all we received. (Eph. 

3 = 8-) 

2 Acts 13 : 39 : By him all that believe are justified from all 
things. (Isa. 3 : II, 12 ; Rom. 8:1.) 

3 Rom. 5:9: Being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved 
from wrath through him. (Zech. 13 : I ; Matt. 9:6; Acts 10 : 43). 

4 Rom. 5:17: They which receive abundance of grace and 
of the gift of righteousness, shall reign in life by one, Jesus 
Christ. (Titus 3 : 5, 6 ; I Peter 3:751 John 2 : 25 ; Rom. 

5 !«.) 

5 Rom. 4 : 4, 5 : Now to him that worketh is the reward not 
reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, 
but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is 
counted for righteousness. (Rom. 5 : 21 ; 6 : 23 ; Phil. 3 : 7-9.) 

6 Rom. 5 : 19 : By the obedience of one shall many be made 
righteous. (Rom. 3 : 24-26 ; 4 : 23-25 ; I John 2 : 12.) 

7 Rom. 5:1,2: Being justified by faith, we have peace with 
God through our Lord Jesus Christ : by whom also we have ac- 
cess by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in 
hope of the glory of God. Rom. 5:3: We glory in tribula- 
lations also. Rom. 5:11: We also joy in God. (1 Cor. I : 30, 
31; Matt. 6: 33; I Tim. 4 : 8.) 

The Freeness of Salvation. 
We believe the Scriptures teach that the bless- 



170 APPENDIX A 

ings of salvation are made free to all by the gos- 
pel ; l that it is the immediate duty of all to accept 
them by a cordial, penitent, and obedient faith; 2 
and that nothing prevents the salvation of the 
greatest sinner on earth, but his own determined 
depravity and voluntary rejection of the gospel ; 3 
which rejection involves him in an aggravated con- 
demnation. 4 

1 Isa. 55 : I : Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the 
waters. Rev. 22 : 17 : Whosoever will, let him take the water of 
life freely. (Luke 14 : 17.) 

2 Rom. 16 : 26 : The gospel, according to the commandment 
of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedi- 
ence of faith. (Mark I : 15 ; Rom. I : 15- 1 7.) 

3 John 5 : 40 : Ye will not come to me, that ye might have life. 
(Matt. 23 : 37 ; Rom. 9 : 32 ; Prov. I : 24 ; Acts 13 : 46.) 

4 John 3 : 19 : And this is the condemnation, that light is come 
into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light because 
their deeds were evil. (Matt. II : 20 ; Luke 19 : 27 ; 2 Thess. 
1:8.) 

Regeneration. 

We believe the Scriptures teach that in order to 
be saved, sinners must be regenerated, or born 
again ; l that regeneration consists in giving a holy 
disposition to the mind ; 2 that it is effected in a 
manner above our comprehension by the power of 
the Holy Spirit, in connection with divine truth, 3 
so as to secure our voluntary obedience to the 
gospel ; 4 and that its proper evidence appears in 
the holy fruits of repentance and faith and new- 
ness of life, 5 



BAPTIST DOCTRINE 171 

1 John 313: Verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born 
again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. (John 3 : 6, 7 ; I Cor. 

2 : 14; Rev. 14 : 3; 21 127.) 

2 2 Cor. 5 : 17 : If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. 
(Ezek. 36 : 26 ; Deut. 30 : 6 ; Rom. 2 : 28, 29 ; 5:5; I John 

4:7. 

3 John 3:8: The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou 
hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, 
and whither it goeth : so is every one that is born of the Spirit. 
John I : 13 : Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of 
the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. James I : 16-18 : 
Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth. ( I Cor. I : 
30 ; Phil. 2:13.) 

4 I Peter I : 22-25 : Ye have purified your souls in obeying 
the truth through the Spirit. 1 John 5 : I : Whosoever. believeth 
that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. (Eph. 4 : 20-24; Col. 

3 = 9-II.) • 

5 Eph. 5 : 9 : The fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and 
righteousness and truth. (Rom. 8:9; Gal. 5 : 16-23 '■> Eph. 2 : 
14-21 ; Matt. 3 : 8-IO ; 7 : 20 ; I John 5 : 4, 18.) 

Repentance and Faith. 
We believe the Scriptures teach that repentance 
and faith are sacred duties, and also inseparable 
graces, wrought in our souls by the regenerating 
Spirit of God ; 1 whereby being deeply convinced 
of our guilt, danger, and helplessness, and of the 
way of salvation by Christ, 2 we turn to God with 
unfeigned contrition, confession, and supplication 
for mercy ; 3 at the same time heartily receiving the 
Lord Jesus Christ as our prophet, priest, and king, 
and relying on him alone as the only and all- 
sufficient Saviour. 4 

1 Mark I : 15 : Repent ye, and believe the gospel. Acts 1 1 ; 



172 APPENDIX A 

18 : Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto 
life. Eph. 2:8: By grace are ye saved through faith ; and that 
not of yourselves : it is the gift of God. I John 5 : 1 : Whoso- 
ever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. 

2 John 16 : 8 : He will reprove the world of sin, and of right- 
eousness, and of judgment. Acts 2 : 37, 38 : They were pricked 
in their heart, and said, . . Men and brethren, what shall we do ? 
Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of 
you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. (Acts 
16:30,31.) 

3 Luke 18:13: And the publican . . . smote upon his breast, say- 
ing, God be merciful to me a sinner. (Luke 15 : 18-20 ; James 
4 : 7-10 ; 2 Cor. 7:11; Rom. 10 : 12, 13 ; Ps. 51. ) 

* Rom. 10 : 9-1 1 : If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the 
Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised 
him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. (Acts 3 : 22, 23 ; Heb. 
4 : 14 ; Ps. 2 : 6 ; Heb. I : 8 ; 7 : 25 ; 2 Tim. I : 12. ) 

God' s Purpose of Grace. 

We believe the Scriptures teach that election is 
the eternal purpose of God, according to which he 
graciously regenerates, sanctifies, and saves sin- 
ners ; l that being perfectly consistent with the free 
agency of man, it comprehends all the means in 
connection with the end ; 2 that it is a most glorious 
display of God's sovereign goodness, being infinitely 
free, wise, holy and unchangeable ; 3 that it utterly 
excludes boasting, and promotes humility, love, 
prayer, praise, trust in God, and active imitation of 
his free mercy ; 4 that it encourages the use of means 
in the highest degree ; 5 that it may be ascertained 
by its effects in all who truly believe the gospel ; 6 
that it is the foundation of Christian assurance; 7 



BAPTIST DOCTRINE 173 

and that to ascertain it with regard to ourselves 
demands and deserves the utmost diligence. 8 

1 2 Tim. I : 8, 9 : Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testi- 
mony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner ; but be thou partaker 
of the afflictions of the gospel, according to the power of God : 
who hath saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not accord- 
ing to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace 
which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. 
(Eph. I : 3-14 ; I Peter I : 1,2; Rom. II : 5, 6 ; John 15 : 16 ; 
I John 4:19.) 

2 2 Thess. 2 : 13, 14 : But we are bound to give thanks 
always to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because 
God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through 
sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth ; whereunto 
he called you by our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our 
Lord Jesus Christ. (Acts 13 : 48 ; John 10 : 16 ; Matt. 20 : 16 ; 
Acts 15 : 14. ) 

3 Exod. ^ : 18, 19 : And Moses said, I beseech thee, shew me 
thy glory. And he said, I will make all my goodness pass be- 
fore thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee ; 
and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will shew 
mercy on whom I will shew mercy. Matt. 20 : 15 : Is it not 
lawful for me to do what I will with my own ? Is thine eye evil, 
because I am good? (Eph. I : II ; Rom. 9 : 23, 24; Jer. 31 : 
3 ; Rom II : 28, 29 ; James I : 17, 18 ; 2 Tim. 1:9; Rom. II : 
32-36.) 

* I Cor. 4:7: For who maketh thee to differ from another ? 
and what hast thou that thou didst not receive ? now if thou 
didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received 
it ? ( I Cor. I : 26-31 ; Rom. 3 : 27 ; 4 : 16 ; Col. 3 : 12 ; I Cor. 
15 : 10 ; I Peter 5 : 10 ; I Thess. 2 : 13 ; I Peter 2:9; Luke 

18:7.) 

5 2 Tim. 2 : 10 : Therefore I endure all things for the elects' 
sake, that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ 
Jesus with eternal glory. 1 Cor. 9 : 22 : I am made all things to 
all men, that I might by all means save some. (Rom. 8 : 28-30 ; 
John 6 : 37-40 ; 2 Peter I : 10.) 



174 APPENDIX A 

6 I Thess. I : 4-10 : Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of 
God. For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also 
in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance, etc. 

7 Rom. 8 : 28-31 : Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them 
he also called : and whom he called, them he also justified : and 
whom he justified, them he also glorified. What shall we then 
say to these things ? If God be for us, who can be against us ? 
(Isa. 42 : 16 ; Rom. II : 29.) 

8 2 Peter I : 10, 1 1 : Wherefore the rather, brethren, give dili- 
gence to make your calling and election sure ; for if ye do these 
things, ye shall never fall : for so an entrance shall be ministered 
unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord 
and Saviour Jesus Christ. (Phil. 3 : 12 ; Heb. 6 : 1 1.) 

Sanctification. 

We believe the Scriptures teach that sanctifica- 
tion is the process by which, according to the will 
of God, we are made partakers of his holiness ; l 
that it is a progressive work ; 2 that it is begun in 
regeneration ; 3 and that it is carried on in the hearts 
of believers by the presence and power of the Holy 
Spirit, the Sealer and Comforter, in the continual 
use of the appointed means, especially the word of 
God, self-examination, self-denial, watchfulness, and 
prayer. 4 

1 1 Thess. 4:3: For this is the will of God, even your sancti- 
fication. I Thess. 5 : 23 : And the very God of peace sanctify 
you wholly. (2 Cor. 7 : I ; 13 : 9 ; Eph. 1:4.) 

2 Prov. 4:18: The path of the just is as the shining light, 
which shineth more and more unto the perfect day. (Heb. 6 : 
I ; 2 Peter I : 5-8 ; Phil. 2 : 12-16. ) 

3 1 John 2 : 29 : If ye know that he [God] is righteous, ye know 
that every one that doeth righteousness is born of him. Rom. 
8:5: They that are after the flesh do mind the things of the 



BAPTIST DOCTRINE 175 

flesh ; but they that are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. 
(John 3:6; Phil. 1:9-11; Eph. I : 13, 14. ) 

4 Phil. 2 : 12, 13 : Work out your own salvation with fear and 
trembling ; for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to 
do of his good pleasure. (Eph. 4:11, 12, 3o;6:i8;i Peter 
2 : 2 ; 2 Peter 3 : 18 ; 2 Cor. 13 : 5 ; Luke 9 : 23 ; II : 35 ; 
Matt. 26 : 41 ; Eph. 6 : 18.) 

Perseverance of Saints. 

We believe the Scriptures teach that such only 
are real believers as endure unto the end ; 1 that 
their persevering attachment to Christ is the grand 
mark which distinguishes them from superficial 
professors ; 2 that a special Providence watches over 
their welfare ; 3 and that they are kept by the power 
of God through faith unto salvation. 4 

1 John 8 : 31 : Then said Jesus, . . If ye continue in my word, 
then are ye my disciples indeed. ( I John 2 : 27, 28 ; 3:9; 
5 : 18.) 

2 John 2:19: They went out from us, but they were not of 
us ; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have con- 
tinued with us ; but they went out, that they might be made mani- 
fest that they were not all of us. (John 13 : 18 ; Matt. 13 : 20, 
21 ; John 6 : 66-69.) 

3 Rom. 8 : 28 : And we know that all things work together for 
good to them that love God, to them who are the called accord- 
ing to his purpose. (Matt. 6 : 30-33 ; Jer. 32 : 40 ; Ps. 91 : II, 
12 ; 121:3. 

4 Phil. 1:6: He which hath begun a good work in you will per- 
form it until the day of Jesus Christ. (Phil. 2 : 12, 13 ; Jude 24, 
25 ; Heb. I : 14 ; 13 : 5 ; 1 John 4 : 4.) 

The Law and Gospel. 
We believe the Scriptures teach that the law of 



I76 APPENDIX A 

God is the eternal and unchangeable rule of his 
moral government ; l that it is holy, just, and good ; 2 
and that the inability which the Scriptures ascribe 
to fallen men to fulfill its precepts arises entirely 
from their love of sin ; 3 to deliver them from which, 
and to restore them through a Mediator to un- 
feigned obedience to the holy law, is one great 
end of the gospel, and of the means of grace 
connected with the establishment of the visible 
church. 4 

1 Rom. 3 : 31 : Do we make void the law through faith? God 
forbid. Yea, we establish the law. (Matt. 5:17; Luke 16 : 17 ; 
Rom. 3 : 20; 4 : 15.) 

2 Rom. 7:12: The law is holy, and the commandment holy, 
and just, and good. (Rom. 7 : 7, 14, 22 ; Gal. 3 : 21 ; Ps. 119.) 

3 Rom. 8 : 7, 8 : The carnal mind is enmity against God ; for it 
is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then 
they that are in the flesh cannot please God. (Josh. 24 : 19 ; 
Jer. 13 : 23; John 6 : 44 ; 5 : 44.) 

4 Rom. 8 : 2, 4 : For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ 
Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For 
what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, 
Gcd sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for 
sin, condemned sin in the flesh : that the righteousness of the law 
might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the 
Spirit. (Rom. 10 : 4 ; Heb. 8 : 10 ; 12 : 14 ; Jude 20, 21.) 

A Gospel Church. 

We believe the Scriptures teach that a visible 
church of Christ is a congregation of baptized be- 
lievers, 1 associated by covenant in the faith and fel- 
lowship of the gospel ; 2 observing the ordinances of 



BAPTIST DOCTRINE 177 

Christ ; 3 governed by his laws ; 4 and exercising the 
gifts, rights, and privileges invested in them by his 
word ; 5 that its only scriptural officers are bish- 
ops or pastors, and deacons, 6 whose qualifications, 
claims and duties are defined in the Epistles to 
Timothy and Titus. 

1 I Cor. I : 1-13 : Paul . . . unto the church of God which is 
at Corinth. . . Is Christ divided ? was Paul crucified for you ? 
or were ye baptized in the name of Paul? (Matt. 18 : 17 ; Acts 
5 : II ; 8 : I ; II : 21-23 ; I Cor. 4 : 17; 14 : 23 ; 3 John 9.) 

2 Acts 2 : 41, 42 : Then they that gladly received his word were 
baptized ; and the same day there were added unto them about three 
thousand souls. 2 Cor. 8:5: They . . . first gave their own 
selves to the Lord, and unto us by the will of God. (Acts 2 : 47 ; 
I Cor. 5 : 12, 13. ) 

3 I Cor. ii:2: Now I praise you, brethren, that ye remember 
me in all things, and keep the ordinances, as I delivered them 
unto you. (2 Thess. 3:6; Rom. 16 : 17-20 ; I Cor. II : 23-26 ; 
Matt. 18 : 15-20; 2 Cor. 2 : 17 ; I Cor. 4 : 17.) 

4 Matt. 28 : 20 : Teaching them to observe all things whatso- 
ever I have commanded you. (John 14 : 15 ; 15 : 12 ; I John 
4:21; John 14 : 21 ; I Thess. 4 : 2 ; 2 John 6 ; Gal. 6:2; all 
the Epistles.) 

5 Eph. 4:7: Unto every one of us is given grace according to 
the measure of the gift of Christ. I Cor. 14 : 12 : Seek that ye 
may excel to the edifying of the church. Phil. I : 27 : That ... I 
may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one 
mind, striving together for the faith of the gospel. ) 

6 Phil. 1 : 1 : With the bishops and deacons. (Acts 14 : 23 ; 
15 : 22 ; 1 Tim. 3 ; Titus I. ) 

Baptism and the Lord' s Supper. 

We believe the Scriptures teach that Christian 
baptism is the immersion in water of a believer, 1 

M 



I78 APPENDIX A 

into the name of the Father, and Son, and Holy 
Ghost ; 2 to show forth in a solemn and beautiful 
emblem, our faith in the crucified, buried, and 
risen Saviour, with its effect, in our death to sin 
and resurrection to a new life ; 3 that it is prerequi- 
site to the privileges of a church relation ; and to 
the Lord's Supper, 4 in which the members of the 
church, by the sacred use of bread and wine, are 
to commemorate together the dying love of Christ ; 5 
preceded always by solemn self-examination. 6 

1 Acts 8 : 36-39 : And the eunuch said, See, here is water ; what 
doth hinder me to be baptized? And Philip said, If thou be- 
lievest with all thine heart, thou mayest. . . And they went down 
both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized 
him. (Matt. 3 : 5, 6 ; John 3 : 22, 23 ; 4 : I, 2 ; Matt. 28 : 19 ; 
Mark 16 : 16 ; Acts 2 : 38 ; 8 : 12 ; 16 : 32-34 ; 18 : 8.) 

2 Matt. 18 : 19 : Baptizing them in the name of the Father, 
and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. (Acts 10 : 47, 48; 
Gal. 3 : 27, 28.) 

3 Rom. 6:4: Therefore we are buried with him by baptism 
into death : that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the 
glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of 
life. (Col. 2 : 12 ; I Peter 3 : 20, 21 ; Acts 22 : 16.) 

4 Acts 2 : 41, 42 : Then they that gladly received his word 
were baptized, and the same day there were added unto them 
about three thousand souls. And they continued steadfastly in 
the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, 
and in prayers. (Matt. 28 : 19, 20 ; Acts and Epistles. ) 

5 I Cor. II : 26 : As often as ye eat this bread, and drink this 
cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come. (Matt. 26 : 26- 
29 ; Mark 14 : 22-25 J Luke 22 : 14-20. ) 

6 I Cor. II : 28 : But let a man examine himself, and so let 
him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. (I Cor. 5 : I, 8 : 
10 : 3-32 ; II : 17-32 ; John 6 : 26-71.) 



BAPTIST DOCTRINE I 79 

The Christian Sabbath. 
We believe the Scriptures teach that the first 
day of the week is the Lord's Day, or Christian 
Sabbath ; l and is to be kept sacred to religious 
purposes, 2 by abstaining from all secular labor and 
sinful recreations, 3 by the devout observance of all 
the means of grace, both private 4 and public; 5 
and by preparation for that rest that remaineth for 
the people of God. 6 

1 Acts 20 : 7 : Upon the first day of the week, when the dis- 
ciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them. 
(Gen. 2:3; Col. 2 : 16, 17 ; Mark 2 : 27 ; John 20 : 19 ; I Cor. 
16 : I, 2). 

2 Exod. 20 : 8 : Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 
Rev. 1 : 10 : I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day. Ps. 118 : 
24 : This is the day which the Lord hath made ; we will rejoice 
and be glad in it. 

3 Isa. 58 : 13, 14 : If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, 
from doing thy pleasure on my holy day ; and call the sabbath 
a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable ; and shalt honour 
him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleas- 
ure, nor speaking thine own words : then shalt thou delight 
thyself in the Lord ; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high 
places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob. 

4 Ps. 118 : 15 : The voice of rejoicing and salvation is in the 
tabernacles of the righteous. 

5 Heb. 10 : 24, 25 : . . . Not forsaking the assembling of our- 
selves together, as the manner of some is. Acts II : 26 : A 
whole year they assembled themselves with the church, and 
taught much people. 

6 Heb. 4 : 3-11 : Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest. 

Civil Government. 
We believe the Scriptures teach that civil gov- 






l8o APPENDIX A 

ernment is of divine appointment, for the interest 
and good order of human society ; l and that magis- 
trates are to be prayed for, conscientiously honored 
and obeyed ; 2 except only in things opposed to 
the will of our Lord Jesus Christ, 3 who is the only 
Lord of the conscience, and the Prince of the 
kings of the earth. 

1 Rom. 13 : 1-7 : The powers that be are ordained of God. 
. . . For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. 
(Deut. 16 : 18 ; 2 Sam. 23 : 3 ; Exod. 18 : 21-23 ; J er - 3° : 2I .«) 

2 Matt. 22 : 21 : Render therefore unto Cesar the things which 
are Cesar's, and unto God the things that are God's. (Titus 3 : 
I ; I Peter 2 : 13 ; 1 Tim. 2 : 1-3. ) 

3 Acts 5 : 29 : We ought to obey God rather than men. Matt. 
10 : 28 : Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to 
kill the soul. (Dan. 3 : 15-18 ; 6 : 7-10 : Acts 4 : 18-20.) 

4 Matt. 23 : 10. Ye have one Master, even Christ. Rom. 14 : 
4 : Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? Rev. 19 : 
16 : And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name writ- 
ten, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS. (Ps. 72 : 
II; 2; Rom. 14 : 9-13.) 

Righteous and Wicked. 

We believe the Scriptures teach that there is a 
radical and essential difference between the right- 
eous and the wicked ; l that such only as through 
faith are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, 
and sanctified by the Spirit of our God, are truly 
righteous in his esteem ; 2 while all such as continue 
in impenitence and unbelief are in his sight wicked, 
and under the curse; 3 and this distinction holds 
among men both in and after death. 4 



BAPTIST DOCTRINE I 8 I 

1 Mai. 3:18: Ye shall discern between the righteous and the 
wicked ; between him that serveth God and him that serveth 
him not. (Prov. 12 : 26 ; Isa. 5 : 20 ; Gen. 18 : 23 ; Acts 10 : 
34, 35; Rom - 6 : 16.) 

2 Rom. I : 17 : The just shall live by faith. Rom. 7:6: We 
are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were 
held ; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the 
oldness of the letter. I John 2 : 29 : If ye know that he is 
righteous, ye know that every one that doeth righteousness is 
born of him. (i John 3:7; Rom. 6 : 18, 22 ; I Cor. II : 32 ; 
Prov. II : 31 ; I Peter 4 : 17, 18.) 

3 I John 5:19: And we know that we are of God, and the 
whole world lieth in wickedness. Gal. 3 : 10 : As many as are 
of the works of the law are under the curse. (John 3 : 36 ; Isa. 
57 :2l; Ps. 10 : 4; Isa. 55 : 6, 7.) 

4 Prov. 14 : 32 : The wicked is driven away in his wickedness : 
but the righteous hath hope in his death. (See, also, the exam- 
ple of the rich man and Lazarus.) Luke 16 : 25 : Thou in thy 
lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil 
things : but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. (Luke 
12 : 4, 5 ; 9 : 23-26 ; John 12 : 25, 26; Eccl. 3:17; Matt. 7 : 
13, MO 

The World to Come, 

We believe the Scriptures teach that the end of 
the world is approaching ; l that at the last day, 
Christ will descend from heaven, 2 and raise the 
dead from the grave for final retribution ; 3 that 
a solemn separation will then take place ; 4 that 
the wicked will be adjudged to endless punish- 
ment, and the righteous to endless joy; 5 and 
that this judgment will fix forever the final state 
of men in heaven or hell, on principles of right- 
eousness. 6 



I 82 APPENDIX A 

1 I Peter 4:7: But the end of all things is at hand ; be ye 
therefore sober, and watch unto prayer. (1 Cor. 7 : 29-31 ; Heb. 

1 : IO-12; Matt. 25 : 31 ; 28 : 20; 13 : 39-43 ; I John 2 : 17 ; 

2 Peter 3 : 3-13. ) 

2 Acts I : II : This same Jesus, which was taken up from you 
into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go 
into heaven. (Rev. 1:7; Heb. 9 : 28 ; Acts 3 : 21 ; I Thess. 4 : 
I3-l8;5 : I-II.) 

3 Acts 24 : 15 : There shall be a resurrection of the dead, both 
of the just and unjust. (1 Cor. 15 : 12-59 ; Luke 14 : 14 ; Dan. 
12 : 2 ; John 5 : 28, 29 ; 6 : 40 ; II : 25, 26 ; Acts IO : 42. ) 

4 Matt. 13 : 49 : The angels shall come forth, and sever the 
wicked from among the just. (Matt. 13 : 37-43 ; 24 : 30, 31 ; 

25 '31-33') 

5 Matt. 25 : 35-46 : And these shall go away into everlast- 
ing punishment : but the righteous into life eternal. Rev. 22 : 
II : He that is unjust, let him be unjust still ; and he which 
is filthy, let him be filthy still ; and he that is righteous, let 
him be righteous still ; and he that is holy, let him be holy 
still. ( I Cor. 6:9, 10 ; Mark 9 : 43-48 ; 2 Peter 2:9; Jude 
7 ; Phil. 3 : 19 ; Rom. 6 : 32 ; 2 Cor. 5 : 10, II ; John 4 : 36 ; 
2 Cor. 4 : 18.) 

6 Rom. 3:5,6: Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance ? 
(I speak as a man. ) God forbid : for then how shall God judge 
the world? 2 Thess. 1 : 6-12 : Seeing it is a righteous thing 
with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you, 
and to you who are troubled rest with us . . . when he shall come 
to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that 
believe. (Heb. 6 : I, 2 ; I Cor. 4:5; Acts 17 : 31 ; Rom. 2 : 
2-16 ; Rev. 20 : II, 12 ; I John 2 : 28 ; 4 : 17. ) 

Seeing then that all these things shall be dis- 
solved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in 
all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and 
hasting unto the coming of the day of God ? (2 
Peter 3 : 1 1, 12.) 






BAPTIST DOCTRINE I 83 

Covenant 

Having been, as we trust, brought by divine 

grace to embrace the Lord Jesus Christ, and to 

give ourselves wholly to him, we do now solemnly 

and joyfully covenant with each other, to walk 

TOGETHER IN HIM, WITH BROTHERLY LOVE, to his 

glory, as our common Lord. We do, therefore, 
in his strength, engage — 

That we will exercise a Christian care and 
watchfulness over each other, and faithfully warn, 
exhort, and admonish each other, as occasion may 
require : 

That we will not forsake the assembling of our- 
selves together, but will uphold the public worship 
of God, and the ordinances of his house : 

That we will not omit closet and family religion at 
home, nor neglect the great duty of religiously train- 
ing our children, and those under our care, for the 
service of Christ and the enjoyment of heaven : 

That, as we are the light of the world and salt 
of the earth, we will seek divine aid, to enable us 
to deny ungodliness, and every worldly lust, and to 
walk circumspectly in the world, that we may win 
the souls of men : 

That we will cheerfully contribute of our 
property, according as God has prospered us, for 
the maintenance of a faithful and evangelical min- 
istry among us, for the support of the poor and to 
spread the gospel over the earth ; 



1 84 



APPENDIX A 



That we will, in all conditions, even till death, 
strive to live to the glory of Him who hath called 
us out of darkness into his marvelous light. 

" And may the God of peace, who brought 
again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great 
Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the 
everlasting covenant, make us perfect in eveiy good 
work, to do his will, working in us that which is 
well pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to 
whom be glory, forever and ever. Amen." 






APPENDIX B 

SPREAD OF BAPTIST PRINCIPLES 

Baptists are in fact, and have been so regarded 
through the ages, a peculiar people. 

This is especially so in two respects — they are 
intolerant as to error, and are uncompromising as 
to Christ's teachings. 

With charity to all, and advocating the fullest 
soul-freedom to all, and ready to aid in and to rejoice 
over the gospel by all, they have ever felt it an im- 
perative duty to walk alone, with unbending forti- 
tude, in the maintenance of the teachings of the 
Lord Jesus and his inspired apostles, and the ob- 
servance of the ordinances as delivered to the saints. 

baptist principles 

These may be summed up in four, we might say, 
self-evident propositions, viz : 

1. Only disciples of the Lord Jesus should be 
baptized and received into church-fellowship or 
membership. 

2. That discipleship involves the profession of 
repentance toward God and faith toward the Lord 
Jesus Christ. 

185 






I 86 APPENDIX B 

3. That a figurative burial (as) with Christ Jesus 
in baptism, an immersion in water, is the only bap- 
tism which is commanded and is exemplified in 
God's word. 

4. That each church is an independent, self-gov- 
erning body, with no head or legislator but the 
Lord Jesus. 

These cardinal principles are summed up in 
the apostolic aphorism, one Lord — of the con- 
science, of the soul, of the destiny. One faith — in 
the one Lord as mediator, in his teaching, in his 
blood for the remission of sins, in his promise of 
salvation to the uttermost. One baptism — to show 
forth his atoning work, his death, burial, and 
resurrection, and to show forth the oneness of his 
people with him, and the one hope, the resurrec- 
tion from the grave to untold eternal glory. 

Baptists have ever denied that baptism was a 
seal or a pledge, or a means of remission of sins, 
or of regeneration, or a " translation " from Satan's 
kingdom into the kingdom of Christ. They have 
ever denied that magistrates or kings or legislators 
have any connection, as such, or have any control or 
rulership with or over the churches of Jesus Christ. 
In brief, Baptists have learned from divine teaching 
that it is through Christ — the only door — to bap- 
tism, through baptism to CHURCH-fellowship or mem- 
bership, as a necessary prerequisite, and through 
the church, in its fellowship, to the Lord's Supper, 



SPREAD OF BAPTIST PRINCIPLES 1 87 

The time was, and indeed till recently, when 
these principles were denounced as religious and 
political anarchy, and punished with deadly penal- 
ties. That time, thank God, is passed. Every one 
of these cardinal principles is acknowledged if not 
fully put in practice in every non-Romanist com- 
munity or "church." 

The growth of the Baptist brotherhood, or de- 
nomination, during the past century against adverse 
surroundings, proclaims trumpet-toned the vitality 
of these principles and the approval of their Lord. 

In 1800 they numbered about one hundred 
thousand in the United States. At the close of 
1900 they numbered more than four millions 

AND A HALF. 

The population of the United States in 1800 was 
seven millions. It was in 1900 over seventy-two 
millions — ten times what it was in 1 800. What a 
growth ! Immigration, of course, greatly helped 
this astonishing increase. But the Regular Baptists, 
during the same period, with but little help from 
immigration, increased not merely ten times, as 
did the population, but sixty times. That is, 
Baptists have multiplied during the past century 
fifty times more than the population has, and 
their increase during the past year (1901) exceeded 
their number at the commencement of the century. 

Putting this increase in another aspect, the Bap- 
tists in 1800 numbered (approximately) one hun- 



I 88 APPENDIX B 

dred thousand ; the population, seven millions. 
That is one Baptist (not counting adherents) to 
every seventy persons of the population. The 
Baptists now number over four and a half mil- 
lions, and the population some seventy-five, 
that is, one Baptist to eveiy sixteen of the popula- 
tion. Think of it ! One to every seventy then, 
one to every sixteen now. 

Truth is might. God's breath is in it. Chains 
cannot bend it, nor opposition crush it. The " eter- 
nal years are hers." 

But Baptists do not record this spread of their 
principles and this increase in their number as 
reliable proofs that they are right. They rely 
alone on God's word. They go back to it for 
their authority. From that they admit no change, 
and no emendation. On the impregnable, moveless 
foundation of God's word, they take their stand, 
confident, fearless, and assured of victory. Fellow- 
Baptists, brethren and sisters in faith and fellow- 
ship, let the examples of our brethren through the 
ages — their steadfastness, their deeds of noble 
daring — invoke us in silent eloquence to be " stead- 
fast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of 
the Lord." 



APPENDIX C 



SCRIPTURAL APOSTOLIC BAPTISM 1 



" For the first thirteen centuries, the almost uni- 
versal practice of baptism was that of which we 
read in the New Testament, and which is the very 
meaning of the word 'baptize,' that those who 
were baptized were plunged, submerged, immersed 
into the water. That practice is still continued in 
Eastern churches. In the Western church it still 
lingers among Roman Catholics in the solitary 
instance of the cathedral at Milan, among Protes- 
tants in the austere sect of the Baptists. It lasted 
long into the Middle Ages. Even the Icelanders, 
who at first shrank from the water of their freezing 
lakes, were reconciled when they found they could 
use the warm water of the geysers, and the cold 
climate of Russia has not been found an obstacle 
to its continuance throughout that vast empire. 
Even in the Church of England it is still observed 
in theory. Elizabeth and Edward the Sixth were 
both immersed. The rubric, in the Public Bap- 
tism for Infants, enjoins that, unless for special 

1 By Dr. Arthur P. Stanley, Dean of Westminster Abbey, from 
" Fortnightly Review," October, 1879. 






IQO APPENDIX C 

cases, they are to be dipped, not sprinkled. But 
in practice it gave way since the beginning of the 
seventeenth century. 

"With the few exceptions just mentioned, the 
whole of the Western churches have now substi- 
tuted for the ancient bath the ceremony of sprin- 
kling a few drops of water on the face. The rea- 
son for the change is obvious. The practice of 
immersion, apostolic and primitive as it was, was 
peculiarly suitable to the Southern and Eastern 
countries for which it was designed, and peculiarly 
unsuitable to the taste, the convenience, and the 
feelings of the countries of the North and West. 
Not by any decree of Council or Parliament, but 
by the general sentiment of Christian liberty, this 
great change was effected. Not beginning till the 
thirteenth century, it has gradually driven the 
ancient Catholic usage out of the whole of Europe. 
There is no one who would now wish to go back 
to the old practice. It had no doubt the sanction 
of the apostles and of their Master. It had the 
sanction of the venerable churches of the early 
ages and of the sacred countries of the East. Bap- 
tism by sprinkling was rejected by the whole 
ancient church, except in the rare case of death- 
beds or extreme necessity, as no baptism at all. 
Almost the first exception was the heretic Nova- 
tian. It still has the sanction of the powerful 
religious community which numbers among its 



SCRIPTURAL APOSTOLIC BAPTISM 19! 

members such noble characters as John Bunyan, 
Robert Hall, and Havelock. 

" In a version of the Bible which the Baptist 
church has compiled for its own use in America, 
where it exceeds in numbers all but the Methodists, 
it is thought necessary — on philological grounds it 
is quite correct — to translate John the Baptist by 
John the Immerser. It has even been defended 
on sanitary grounds. Sir John Floyer dated the 
prevalence of consumption to the discontinuance 
of baptism by immersion. But, speaking gener- 
ally, the Christian civilized world has decided 
against it It is a striking example of the triumph 
of common sense and convenience over the bond- 
age of form and custom. Perhaps no greater 
change has ever taken place in the outward form 
of Christian ceremony with such general agree- 
ment. It is a greater change even than that which 
the Roman Catholic Church has made in adminis- 
tering the sacrament of the Lord's Supper in the 
bread without the wine. For that was a change 
which did not affect the thing that was signified ; 
whereas the change from immersion to sprinkling 
has set aside the larger part of the apostolic lan- 
guage regarding baptism and has altered the very 
meaning of the word. But whereas the with- 
holding of the cup produced the long and san- 
guinary war of Bohemia, and has been one of the 
standing grievances of the Protestants against the 



1 92 APPENDIX C 

Roman Catholic Church, the withdrawal of the 
ancient rite of immersion, decided by the whole 
of the ancient church to be essential to the sacra- 
ment of baptism, has been, with the exception of 
the insurrection of the Anabaptists of Munster, 
adopted almost without a struggle. It shows the 
wisdom of not imposing the customs of other 
regions and other climates on those to whom they 
are not congenial. It shows how the spirit which 
lives and moves in human society can override 
even the most sacred ordinances. It remains an 
instructive example of the facility and silence with 
which, in matters of form, even the greatest changes 
can be effected without any serious loss to Chris- 
tian truth and with great advantage to Christian 
solemnity and edification. The substitution of 
sprinkling for immersion must, to many at the 
time, as to Baptists now, have seemed the greatest 
and most dangerous innovation. Now, by all 
Catholics and by most Protestants, it is regarded 
almost as a second nature. 

"Another change is not so complete, but is per- 
haps more important. In the apostolic age, and 
in the centuries which followed, it is evident that, 
as a general rule, those who came to baptism, came 
in full age, of their own deliberate choice. We 
find a few cases of baptism of children ; in the 
third century we find one case of the baptism 
of infants. Even among Christian households the 



SCRIPTURAL APOSTOLIC BAPTISM 1 93 

instances of Chrysostom, Gregory Nazianzen, Basil, 
Ephrem of Edessa, Augustine, Ambrose, are de- 
cisive proofs that it was not only not obligatory but 
not usual. They had Christian parents, and yet 
they were not baptized till they reached maturity. 
The liturgical service of baptism was framed en- 
tirely for full-grown converts, and is only by con- 
siderable adaptation applied to the case of infants. 
" Gradually, however, the practice spread, and 
after the fifth century the whole Christian world, 
East and West, Catholic and Protestant, Episcopal, 
and Presbyterian (with the single exception of the 
sect of Baptists before mentioned), have baptized 
children in their infancy. Whereas, in the early 
ages adult baptism was the rule and infant bap- 
tism the exception, in later times infant baptism is 
the rule and adult baptism the exception. What 
is the justification of this almost universal departure 
from the primitive usage ? There may have been 
many reasons, some bad, some good. One, no 
doubt, was the superstitious feeling, already men- 
tioned, which regarded baptism as a charm, indis- 
pensable to salvation, and which insisted on im- 
parting it to every human being who could be 
touched with water, however unconscious. Hence 
the eagerness with which Roman Catholic mission- 
aries, like St. Francis Xavier, have made it the 
chief glory of their mission to have baptized 
heathen populations wholesale, in utter disregard 

N 



194 APPENDIX C 

of the primitive or Protestant practice of previous 
preparation. Hence the capture of children for 
baptism without the consent of their parents, as in 
the celebrated case of the Jewish boy Mortara. 
Hence the curious decision of the Sorbonne quoted 
in i Tristram Shandy.' Hence in the early cen- 
turies, and still in the Eastern churches, co-exten- 
sive with infant baptism, the practice of infant 
communion, both justified on the same grounds, 
and both based on the mechanical application of 
biblical texts to cases which by their very nature 
were not contemplated in the apostolic age. 

" But there is a better side to the growth of this 
practice which, even if it did not mingle in its 
origin, is at least the cause of its continuance. It 
lay deep in early Christian feeling that the fact of 
belonging to a Christian household consecrated 
every member of it. Whether baptized or not, 
the apostle urged that, because the parents were 
holy, therefore the children were holy. They were 
not to be treated as outcasts ; they were not to be 
treated as heathen ; they were to be recognized 
as part of the chosen people. This passage, whilst 
it is conclusive against the practice of infant baptism 
in the apostolic age, is a recognition of the legiti- 
mate reason and permanent principle on which it is 
founded. It is the acknowledgment of the Chris- 
tian saintliness and union of family life. The good- 
ness, the holiness, the purity of a Christian fireside, 






SCRIPTURAL APOSTOLIC BAPTISM IQ5 

of a good death-bed, extends to all those who come 
within its reach. As we are all drawn nearer to 
each other by the natural bonds of affection, so we 
are drawn still nearer when these bonds of affection 
are cemented by Christianity. Every gathering, 
therefore, for the christening of a little child, is 
truly a family gathering. It teaches us how closely 
we are members one of another. It teaches parents 
how deeply responsible they are for the growth of 
that little creature throughout its future education. 
It teaches brothers and sisters how by them is 
formed the atmosphere, good or bad, in which the 
soul of their little new-born brother or sister is 
trained to good or to evil. It teaches us the value 
of the purity of th6'se domestic relations in which 
from childhood to old age all our best thoughts are 
fostered and encouraged. It also surmounts and 
avoids the difficulties which encompass adult bap- 
tism in any country or society already impregnated 
with Christian influences. If the New Testament 
has no example of infant baptism, neither has it 
any example of adult Christian baptism ; that is, 
of the baptism of those who had been already born 
and bred Christians. The artificial formality of a 
baptismal service for those who in our time have 
grown up as Christians is precluded by the admin- 
istration of the rite at the commencement of their 
natural life. 

" But there is a further reason to be found in the 



I96 APPENDIX C 

character of children. This is contained in the 
gospel which is read in the baptismal service of 
infants throughout the Western church. In the 
early ages there probably were those who doubted 
whether children could be regarded worthy to be 
dedicated to God or to Christ. The answer is 
very simple. If our divine Master did not think 
them unfit to be taken in his arms and receive his 
own gracious blessing when he was actually here 
in bodily presence, we need not fear to ask his 
blessing upon them now. 

" Infant baptism is thus a recognition of the good 
which there is in every human soul. It declares 
that in every child of Adam, whilst there is much 
evil, there is more good ; whilst there is much 
which needs to be purified and elevated, there is 
much also which in itself shows a capacity for 
purity and virtue. In those little children of Gali- 
lee, all unbaptized as they were, not yet even 
within the reach of a Christian family, Jesus Christ 
saw the likeness of the kingdom of heaven merely 
because they were little children, merely because 
they were innocent human beings, he saw in them 
the objects, not of divine malediction, but of divine 
benediction. Lord Palmerston was once severely 
attacked for having said " children are born good." 
But he, in fact, only said what Chrysostom had said 
before him, and Chrysostom said only what in the 
Gospels had been already said of the natural state 






SCRIPTURAL APOSTOLIC BAPTISM \gj 

of the unbaptized Galilean children — " Of such is 
the kingdom of heaven.' ' 

"The substitution of infant baptism for adult bap- 
tism, like the change from immersion to sprinkling, 
is thus a triumph of Christian charity. It exem- 
plifies at the first beginning of life that divine grace 
which hopes all things, believes all things, endures 
all things. In each such little child our Saviour 
saw, and we may see, the promise of a glorious 
future. In those little hands, folded in uncon- 
scious repose, in those bright eyes first awakening 
to the outer world, in that soft forehead unfurrowed 
by the slightest ruffle of care, lie saw, and we may 
see, the undeveloped rudimental instruments of the 
labor and intelligence and energy of a whole life. 
And not only so — not only in hope, but in actual 
reality, does the blessing on little children, whether 
as expressed in the gospel story or as implied in 
infant baptism, acknowledge the excellency and 
the value of the childlike soul. Not once only in 
his life, but again and again, he held them up to his 
disciples as the best corrective of the sins and pas- 
sions of mankind. He exhorted all men to follow 
their innocency, their unconsciousness, their guile- 
lessness, their truthfulness, their purity. He saw 
in them the regenerating, sanctifying element of 
every family, of every household, of every nation. 
He saw, and we may see, in their natural, unaf- 
fected, simple, unconstrained acts and words the 



I98 APPENDIX C 

best antidote to the artificial, fantastic, exclusive 
spirit which beset the Pharisees of his own time, 
and must beset the Pharisees, whether of the relig- 
ious or of the unreligious world, in all times. Infant 
baptism thus is the standing testimony to the truth, 
the value, the eternal significance of what is called 
'natural religion,' of what Butler calls the consti- 
tution of human nature. It is also in a more spe- 
cial sense still the glorification of children. It is 
the outward expression of their proper place in the 
Christian church and in the instincts of the civil- 
ized world. It teaches us how much we all have 
to learn from children, how much to enjoy, how 
much to imitate. It is the response to all that 
poetry of children which in our days has been spe- 
cially consecrated by Wordsworth and Keble. 

"When we think of what a child is — how help- 
less, how trusting, how hopeful — the most hard- 
ened of men must be softened by its presence and 
feel the reverence due to its tender conscience as 
to its tender limbs. When we remember that be- 
fore their innocent faces the demons of ambition, 
and impurity, and worldliness, and uncharitable- 
ness are put to flight ; that for their innocent souls 
there is a place in a better world, though they are 
now and will be for months and years ignorant of 
those theological problems which rend their elders 
asunder, it may possibly teach us that it is not 
1 before all things necessary ' to know the differ- 



SCRIPTURAL APOSTOLIC BAPTISM 1 99 

ences which divide the churches of the East or 
West, or the churches of the North or South. 
When we think of the sweet repose of a child as 
it lies in the arms of its nurse or its pastor at the 
font, it may recall to us the true attitude of humble 
trust and confidence which most befits the human 
soul, whether of saint or philosopher. ' Like as a 
weaned child on its mother's breast, my soul is even 
as a weaned child.' When we meditate on the im- 
perfect knowledge of a child, it is the best picture 
to us of our imperfect knowledge in this mortal 
state. ' I am but a little child,' said Sir Isaac New- 
ton, ' picking up pebbles on the shore of the vast 
ocean of truth.' 'When I was a child, when I was 
an infant,' said St. Paul, 'I spake as an " infant," I 
thought as an " infant " ; but when I became a man, 
the thoughts and the spirit of an " infant" were 
done away.' It is the pledge to us of a perpetual 
progress. The baptism of an infant, as the birth of 
an infant, would be nothing were it not that it in- 
cludes within it the hope and the assurance of all 
that is to follow after. In those feeble cries, in those 
unconscious movements, there is the first stirring of 
the giant within ; the first dawn of that reasonable 
soul which will never die ; the first budding of 

The seminal form which in the deeps 
Of that little chaos sleeps. 

"The investment of this first beginning with a 



200 APPENDIX C 

religious and solemn character teaches us that, as 
we must grow from infancy to manhood, so also 
we must grow from the infancy, the limited per- 
ceptions, the narrow faith, the stunted hope, the 
imperfect knowledge, .the straitened affections of 
the infancy of this mortal state to the full-grown 
manhood of our immortal life. It suggests that 
we have to pass from the momentary baptism 
of unconscious infants through the transforming 
baptism of fire and the Spirit — that is, of expe- 
rience and character — which is wrought out through 
the many vicissitudes of life and the great change 
of death. 

" There are many other changes consequent on 
the substitution of infant for adult baptism. The 
whole institution of sponsors is of a later date. In 
the early centuries the answers were made for the 
child as a general rule by the parents. The crea- 
tion of a new series of spiritual -affinities was the 
result of transferring to a child the dramatic form 
which had been originally used for grown-up con- 
verts. This modern system of sponsors doubtless 
has its social and moral advantages, but it was with 
a view of meeting the obvious difficulties which so 
complex an arrangement awakens in the minds at 
least of the uneducated that the late Royal Com- 
missioners on the Rubrics on one occasion recom- 
mended that the whole of that part of the baptismal 
service should be made optional This, with many 






SCRIPTURAL APOSTOLIC BAPTISM 201 

other sensible proposals, was rejected by the Lower 
House of the Southern Convocation. 

" The connection of the Christian name with bap- 
tism is also a result of the change. Properly speak- 
ing, the name is not given in baptism, but having 
been already given, the person baptized is then pub- 
licly recognized as the bearer of the name which 
stamps his personality. In the case of the adult bap- 
tism of the early ages this was obvious. Flavius Con- 
stantinus had always been Flavius Constantinus and 
Aurelius Augustinus always Aurelius Augustinus. 
It was only when the time of the name giving and of 
the baptism, as in the case of infants, so nearly 
coincided, that the two came to be confounded. 

" Confirmation, which once formed a part of bap- 
tism, has been separated from it and turned into 
a new ordinance, which in the Roman Catholic 
Church has been made into another sacrament. 
Along with this disruption between confirmation 
and baptism has taken place another change — -the 
absolute prohibition throughout the Western Church 
of infant communion, which in the early church 
was, as it still is in the East, the inseparable accom- 
paniment of infant baptism. In early ages, as in 
the Eastern Church, confirmation was the title given 
to the unction which accompanied baptism. In the 
later Roman Church and in most Protestant churches 
it is the title given to the open adoption of the 
Christian faith and life in mature years. 



202 APPENDIX C 

" Another curious series of changes has taken 
place in regard to the persons who administered 
baptism. In the early centuries it was only the 
bishop, and this is probably the origin of the reten- 
tion by the episcopal order of that part of the old 
baptism which, as we have just said, was what we 
now call confirmation. Thus, as the episcopate 
became more separate from the presbyterate, as 
the belief in the paramount necessity of baptism 
became stronger, as the population of Christendom 
increased, the right was extended to presbyters, 
then to deacons, and at last to laymen, and, in 
defiance of all early usage, to women. And thus 
it has happened, by one of those curious introver- 
sions of sentiment which are so instructive in eccle- 
siastical history, that whilst in Protestant churches 
which lay least stress on the outward rite, the ad- 
ministration is virtually confined to the clergy, in 
the Roman Catholic Church, which lays most stress 
on the rite, the administration is extended to the 
laity and to the female sex. It is a formidable 
breach in the usual theories concerning the indis- 
pensable necessity of the clerical order for the 
administration of the sacramental rights, and it is 
difficult to see what is the difference in principle in 
the Roman church which has rendered the prac- 
tice with regard to one sacrament exceedingly lax, 
with regard to the other so exceedingly rigid. 

"Such are some of the general reflections sug- 



SCRIPTURAL APOSTOLIC BAPTISM 203 

gested by the revolutions through which the oldest 
ordinance of the church has come down to our 
day. They may possibly make that ordinance 
more intelligible both to those who adopt and to 
those who have not adopted it. They may also 
serve to show in one instance the transformations 
both of letter and spirit which have taken place in 
many other examples." 

The foregoing clear and emphatic statement of 
the learned dignitary of the Protestant Episcopal 
Church of England : First, the apostles and the early 
churches immersed, that the change from immer- 
sion to sprinkling has set aside a large part of the 
apostolic language ; and, second, that infant bap- 
tism was not instituted by the Lord Jesus or his 
apostles, is just what Baptists have announced and 
suffered for through the so-called Christian ages. 
But he says : 

1. That men have a right to change the ordi- 
nance instituted by the Lord to suit their case or 
convenience. 

2. That the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles 
and the apostles' Epistles are no standards for 
Christians or churches. The inspired word, he 
acknowledges, enjoins the immersion of believers. 
It matters not, he considers the change from infant 
to adult baptism and from immersion to sprinkling 
"a triumph. ,, Yes, over God's truth, as the Lord 



204 APPENDIX C 

commanded. " But ye are my friends," said the 
Lord, "if ye do whatsoever I command you." 

3. The ritual always repeated in the Episcopal 
churches, " As it was in the beginning, is now, and 
ever shall be," is false. In the beginning of the 
Gospel, John and the Lord's disciples immersed 
believers, so says the learned dean. Not that they 
sprinkled infants. It is not now as in the begin- 
ning, and the repeated ritual is a false utterance, 
according to Episcopalians' own authority. 

4. As baptism was the immersion of believers 
in the beginning, it is immersion now, and hence 
Pedobaptists are not baptized ; according to their 
own confession and admission they are not a church 
and have no right to the ordinance of the Lord's 
Supper. How can they complain of Baptists be- 
cause Baptists refuse to admit them to the one 
when they refuse to comply with the other. 




S. H. FORD, D.D. 



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AMERICAN BAPTIST 
PUBLICATION SOCIETY 



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BINDERY 
1903 



